w  ♦.  t  a-ovfc-T 


iiii 


V 


IKELE' 

R 

'ER^Ijir  OF 


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h 


Prof.  C.  H.  A.  BULKLEY, 


HOWARD  UNIVERSITY, 


WASHINGTON.  D. 


l!^  N  G  r.  I  S  H, 


I'*  AST    AND    PRESENT. 


Works  by  R.  C.  Trench,  D.  D.,  Dean  of  Westminster. 

IN  UNIFORM  STYLE   WITH   THIS  VOLUME. 
I. 

ON   THE   STUDY   OF   WORDS. 

NEW    AND    REVISED    EDITION. 
1  voL  12mo,     Price  75  cents. 

II. 

ON    THE    LESSONS    IN    PROVERBS. 

1  voL  12mo.    Price  50  cents. 
III. 

SYNONYMS  OF    THE    NEW   TESTAMENT. 

1  vol.  12mo.     Price  75  cents. 
IV. 

ON,   THE    ENGLISH   LANGUAGE 

PAST     AND     PRESENT. 
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V. 

POEMS. 

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VI. 

CALDERON,    HIS    LIFE    AND    GENIUS, 

WITH    SPECIMENS    OF    HIS    PLAYS. 
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VII. 

SERMONS  ON    THE    DIVINITY  OF  CHRIST. 

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VIII. 

ON  THE  AUTHORIZED  VERSION  OF  THE  NEW 
TESTAMENT, 

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IX. 

A  SELECT  GLOSSARY  OF  ENGLISH  WORDS,  USED 

FORMERLY  IN  SENSES  DIFFERENT  FROM 

THEIR  PRESENT. 

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X. 

SERMONS  PREACHED  IN  WESTMINSTER  ABBEY. 

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PUBLIiSHED  BY  J.  S.  REDFIELD,  NEW  YORK. 


ON  THE 


ENGLISH  LANGUAGE 


PAST  AND   PRESENT 


RICHARD  CHENEVIX  TRENCH,  D.D. 

DEAN    OF    WESTMINSTER 

AUTII.  A  OV     "SyNONYMS  OF   THK    NEW  TESTAMENT" — "THE  STUDY  OF  WOHDS" 
"  proverbs"  —  "  sermons" — '•  poems" —  '  CALDERON,"  ETC. 


NEW     EDITION,     REVISED     AND     ENLARGED. 


NEW  YORK 
W.    J.    WIDDLETON 

BirCCESSOB    TO    3.    S.    KEDFIELD 

18  6  0 


V^in^ 


-7 


PREFACE. 


A  SERIES  of  four  lectures  which  I  delivered  last 
spring  to  the  pupils  of  King's  College  School,  London, 
supplied  the  foundation  to  this  present  volume.  These 
lectures,  which  I  was  obliged  to  prepare  in  haste,  on 
a  brief  invitation,  and  under  the  pressure  of  other  en- 
gag  oments,  being  subsequently  enlarged  and  recast, 
were  delivered  in  the  autumn  somewhat  more  nearly 
in  their  present  shape  to  the  pupils  of  the  Training 
School,  Winchester ;  although  of  course  with  those 
alterations,  omissions,  and  additions,  which  the  dif- 
ference in  my  hearers  suggested  as  necessary  or  de- 
sirable. I  have  found  it  convenient  to  keep  the  lec- 
tures, as  regards  the  persons  presumed  to  be  addressed, 
in  that  earlier  form  which  I  had  sketched  out  at  the 
first ;  and,  inasmuch  as  it  helps  much  to  keep  lectures 
vivid  and  real  that  one  should  have  some  well-defined 
audience,  if  not  actually  before  one,  yet  before  the 
mind's  eye,  to  suppose  myself  throughout  ^addressing 
my  first  hearers.  I  have  supposed  myself,  that  is, 
addressing  a  body  of  young  Englishmen,  all  with  a 

025 


()  PREFACE. 

fair  amount  of  classical  knowledge  (in  my  explana- 
tions I  have  sometimes  had  others  with  less  than 
theirs  in  my  eye),  not  wholly  unacquainted  with  mod- 
ern languages ;  but  not  yet  with  any  special  designa- 
tion as  to  their  future  work ;  having  only  as  yet 
marked  out  to  them  the  duty  in  general  of  living  lives 
worthy  of  those  who  have  England  for  their  native 
country,  and  English  for  their  native  tongue.  To 
lead  such  through  a  more  intimate  knowledge  of  this 
into  a  greater  love  of  that,  has  been  a  principal  aim 
which  I  have  set  before  myself  throughout. 

In  a  few  places  I  have  been  obliged  again  to  go 
over  ground  which  I  had  before  gone  over  in  a  little 
book,  "  On  the  Study  of  Words  ;^^  but  I  believe  that  I 
have  never  merely  repeated  myself,  nor  given  to  the 
readers  of  my  former  work  and  now  of  this  any  right 
to  complain  that  I  am  compelling  them  to  travel  a 
second  time  by  the  same  paths.  At  least  it  has  been 
my  endeavor,  whenever  I  have  found  myself  at  points 
where  the  two  books  come  necessarily  into  contact, 
that  what  was  treated  with  any  fullness  before,  should 
be  here  touched  on  more  lightly  ;  and  only  what  there 
was  slightly  handled,  should  here  be  entered  on  at 
large. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE  I. 

EKGLISH   A   C03IP08ITE    LANGUAGE P40B      9 

LECTURE  IL 

GAINS    OF    THE    ENGLISH    LANGUAGE «tf 

LECTURE  III. 

DIMINUTIONS    OF   THE   ENGLISH    LANGUAGE 104 

LECTURE  IV. 

CHANGES    IN    THE   MEANING    OF   ENGLISH   WORDS 159 

LECTURE  V. 

CHANGES    IN    THE    SPELLING    OF    ENGLISH   WORDS 193 


ENGLISH, 
PAST    AND    PRESENT. 


LECTURE   I. 

ENGLISH   A    COMPOSITE   LANGUAGE. 

"  A  VERY  slight  acquaintance  with  the  history  of 
our  own  language  will  teach  us  that  the  speech  of 
Chaucer's  age  is  not  the  speech  of  Skelton's.  that 
there  is  a  great  difference  between  the  language  un- 
der Elizabeth  and  that  under  Charles  I.,  between  that 
under  Charles  I.  and  Charles  II.,  between  that  under 
Charles  II.  and  Queen  Anne ;  that  considerable  changes 
had  taken  place  between  the  beginning  and  the  mid- 
dle of  the  last  century,  and  that  Johnson  and  Fielding 
did  not  write  altogether  as  we  do  now.  For  in  the 
course  of  a  nation's  progress  new  ideas  are  evermore 
mounting  above  the  horizon,  while  others  are  lost  sight 
of  and  sink  below  it :  others,  again,  change  their  form 
and  aspect :  others,  which  seemed  united,  split  into 
parts.  And  as  it  is  with  ideas,  so  it  is  with  their  sym- 
bols, words.  New  ones  are  perpetually  coined  to 
meet  the  demand  of  an  advanced  understanding,  of 
new  feelings  that  have  sprung  out  of  the  decay  of  old 

1* 


10  ENGLISH   A    COMPOSITE   LANGUAGE. 

ones,  of  ideas  that  have  shot  forth  from  the  summit 
of  the  tree  of  our  knowledge ;  old  words  meanwhile 
fall  into  disuse  and  become  obsolete ;  others  have 
their  meaning  narrowed  and  defined ;  synonyms  di- 
verge from  each  other,  and  their  property  is  parted 
between  them ;  nay,  whole  classes  of  words  will  now 
and  then  be  thrown  overboard,  as  new  feelings  or 
perceptions  of  analogy  gain  ground.  A  history  of 
the  language  in  which  all  these  vicissitudes  should  be 
pointed  out,  in  which  the  introduction  of  every  new 
word  should  be  noted,  so  far  as  it  is  possible — and 
much  may  be  done  in  this  way  by  laborious,  and  dili- 
gent, and  judicious  research — in  which  such  words 
as  have  become  obsolete  should  be  followed  down  to 
their  final  extinction,  in  which  all  the  most  remarka- 
ble words  should  be  traced  through  their  successive 
phases  of  meaning,  and  in  which  moreover  the  causes 
and  occasions  of  these  changes  should  be  explained, 
such  a  work  w^ould  not  only  abound  in  entertainment, 
but  would  throw  more  light  on  the  development  of 
the  human  mind  than  all  the  brainspun  systems  of 
metaphysics  that  ever  were  written." 

These  words,  which  thus  far  are  not  my  own,  but 
the  words  of  a  greatly-honored  friend  and  teacher, 
who,  though  we  behold  him  now  no  more,  still  teaches, 
and  will  teach,  by  the  wisdom  of  his  writings  and  the 
nobleness  of  his  life  (they  are  words  of  Archdeacon 
Hare),  I  have  put  in  the  forefront  of  my  lectures ; 
seeing  that  they  anticipate  in  the  way  of  masterly 
sketch  all  which  I  shall  attempt  to  accomplish,  and 
indeed  draw  out  the  lines  of  much  more,  to  which  I 
shall  not  venture  even  to  put  forth  my  hand.     They 


LOVE   OF   OUR   OWN   TONGUE.  11 

ar^  the  more  welcome  to  me,  because  they  eucouiage 
mo  to  believe  that  if,  in  choosing  the  English  language, 
its  past  and  its  present,  as  the  subject  of  that  brief 
course  of  lectures  which  I  am  to  deliver  in  this  place, 
I  liave  chosen  a  subject  which  in  many  ways  tran- 
scends my  powers,  and  lies  beyond  the  range  of  my 
knowledge,  it  is  yet  one  in  itself  of  deepest  interest, 
and  of  fully-recognised  value.  Nor  can  I  refrain  from 
hoping  that  even  with  my  imperfect  handling,  it  is  an 
argument  which  will  find  an  answer  and  an  echo  in 
the  hearts  of  all  who  hear  me ;  which  would  have 
found  this  at  any  time ;  which  will  do  so  especially 
at  the  present.  For  these  are  times  which  naturally 
rouse  into  liveliest  activity  all  our  latent  affections 
for  the  land  of  our  birth.  It  is  one  of  the  compensa- 
tions, indeed  the  greatest  of  all,  for  the  wastefulness, 
the  wo,  the  cruel  losses  of  war,  that  it  causes  and  in- 
deed compels  a  people  to  know  itself  a  people  ;  lead- 
ing each  one  to  esteem  and  prize  most  that  which  he 
has  in  common  with  his  fellow-countrymen,  and  not 
now  any  longer  those  things  which  separate  and  divide 
him  from  them. 

And  the  love  of  our  own  language,  what  is  it  in 
fact  but  the  love  of  our  country  expressing  itself  in 
one  particular  direction  ?  If  the  great  acts  of  that 
nation  to  which  we  belong  are  precious  to  us,  if  we 
feel  ourselves  made  greater  by  their  greatness,  sum- 
moned to  a  nobler  life  by  the  nobleness  of  Englishmen 
wlio  have  already  lived  and  died,  and  have  bequeathed 
to  us  a  name  which  must  not  by  us  be  made  less,  what 
exploits  of  theirs  can  well  be  nobler,  what  can  more 
clearly  point  out  their  native  land  and  ours  as  having 
fulfilled  a  glorious  past,  as  being  destined  for  a  glori- 


12  ENGLISH   A    COMPOSITE   LANGUAGE. 

ous  future,  than  that  they  should  have  acquired  for 
themselves  and  for  those  who  come  after  them  a  clear, 
a  strong,  an  harmonious,  a  noble  language  ?  For  all 
this  bears  vritness  to  corresponding  merits  in  those 
that  speak  it,  to  clearness  of  mental  vision,  to  strength, 
to  harmony,  to  nobleness,  in  them  that  have  gradually 
formed  and  shaped  it  to  be  the  utterance  of  their  in- 
most life  and  being. 

To  know  of  this  language,  the  stages  which  it  has 
gone  through,  the  quarters  from  which  its  riches  have 
been  derived,  the  gains  which  it  is  now  making,  the 
perils  which  have  threatened  or  are  threatening  it, 
the  losses  which  it  has  sustained,  the  latent  capaci- 
ties which  may  yet  be  in  it,  waiting  to  be  evoked,  the 
points  in  which  it  is  superior  to  other  tongues,  in 
which  it  comes  short  of  them — all  this  may  well  be 
the  object  of  worthy  ambition  to  every  one  of  us.  So 
may  we  hope  to  be  ourselves  guardians  of  its  purity, 
and  not  corrupters  of  it ;  to  introduce,  it  may  be, 
others  into  an  intelligent  knowledge  of  that  with 
which  we  shall  have  ourselves  more  than  a  merely  su- 
perficial acquaintance;  to  bequeath  it  to  those  who 
come  after  us  not  worse  than  we  received  it  ourselves. 
"  Spartam  nactus  es  ;  hanc  exorna'''  —  this  should  be 
our  motto  in  respect  at  once  of  our  country,  and  of 
our  country's  tongue. 

Nor  shall  we,  I  trust,  any  of  us,  feel  this  subject  to 
be  alien  or  remote  from  the  purposes  which  have 
brought  us  to  study  within  these  walls.  It  is  true 
that  we  are  mainly  occupied  here  in  studying  other 
tongues  than  our  own.  The  time  we  bestow  upon  it 
is  small  as  compared  with  that  bestowed  on  those  oth- 
ers.    And  yet  one  of  our  main  purposes  in  learning 


DUTY   TO   OUR   OWN   TONGUE.  13 

them  is  that  we  may  better  understand  this.  Nor 
ought  any  other  to  dispute  with  it  the  first  and  fore- 
most place  in  our  reverence,  our  gratitude,  and  our 
love.  It  has  been  well  and  worthily  said  by  an  illus- 
trious German  scholar :  ''  The  care  of  the  national 
language  I  consider  as  at  all  times  a  sacred  trust  and 
a  most  important  privilege  of  the  higher  orders  of 
society.  Every  man  of  education  should  make  it  the 
object  of  his  unceasing  concern  to  preserve  his  lan- 
guage pure  and  entire  ;  to  speak  it,  so  far  as  is  in  his 
power,  in  all  its  beauty  and  perfection A  na- 
tion whose  language  becomes  rude  and  barbarous, 
must  be  on  the  brink  of  barbarism  in  regard  to  every- 
thing else.  A  nation  which  allows  her  language  to 
go  to  ruin,  is  parting  with  the  last  half  of  her  intel- 
lectual independence,  and  testifies  her  willingness  to 
cease  to  exist."* 

But  this  knowledge,  like  all  other  knowledge  which 
is  worth  attaining,  is  only  to  be  attained  at  the  price 
of  labor  and  pains.  The  language  which  at  this  day 
we  speak  is  the  result  of  processes  which  have  been 
going  forward  for  hundreds  and  for  thousands  of 
years.  Nay,  more  ;  it  is  not  too  much  to  affirm  that 
processes  modifying  the  English  which  at  the  present 
day  we  write  and  speak,  have  been  at  work  from  the 
first  day  that  man,  being  gifted  with  discourse  of 
reason,  projected  his  thought  fronr  out  himself,  and 
embodied  and  contemplated  it  in  his  word.  AVhich 
things  being  so,  if  we  would  understand  this  language 
as  it  now  is,  we  must  know  something  of  it  as  it  has 
been  ;  we  must  be  able  to  measure,  however  roughly, 

*  F.  Schlegel,  History  of  Literature,  lecture  x. 


14  ENGLISH   A   COMPOSITE  LA.NGUAGE. 

the  forces  which  have  been  at  work  upon  it,  moulding 
and  shaping  it  into  the  forms  which  it  now  wears. 

At  the  same  time,  various  prudential  considerations 
must  determine  for  us  how  far  up  we  will  endeavor  to 
trace  the  course  of  its  history.  There  are  those  who 
may  seek  to  trace  our  language  to  the  forests  of  Ger- 
many and  Scandinavia,  to  investigate  its  relation  to 
all  the  kindred  tongues  that  were  there  spoken ; 
again,  to  follow  it  up,  till  it  and  they  arc  seen  de- 
scending from  an  elder  stock ;  nor  once  to  pause,  till 
they  have  assigned  to  it  its  place  not  merely  in  respect 
of  that  small  group  of  languages  which  are  immedi- 
ately round  it,  but  in  respect  of  all  the  tongues  and 
languages  of  the  earth.  I  can  imagine  few  studies  of 
a  more  surpassing  interest  than  this.  Others,  how- 
ever, must  be  content  with  seeking  such  insight  into 
their  native  language  as  may  be  within  the  reach  of 
all  who,  unable  to  make  this  the  subject  of  especial 
research,  possessing  neither  that  vast  compass  of 
knowledge  nor  that  immense  apparatus  of  books,  not 
being  at  liberty  to  dedicate  to  it  that  devotion  almost 
of  a  life  which,  followed  out  to  the  full,  it  would  re- 
quire, have  yet  an  intelligent  interest  in  their  mother- 
tongue,  and  desire  to  learn  as  much  of  its  growth, 
and  history,  and  construction,  as  may  be  reasonably 
deemed  within  their  reach.  To  such  as  these  I  shall 
suppose  myself  to  be  speaking.  It  would  be  a  piece 
of  great  presumption  in  me  to  undertake  to  speak  to 
any  other,  or  to  assume  any  other  ground  than  this 
for  myself. 

I  know  there  are  some  who,  when  they  are  invited 
to  enter  at  all  upon  the  past  history  of  the  language, 
are  inclined  to  make  answer :  "  To  what  end  such 


Tti.E   PAST   EXPLAINS   THE   PRESENT.  15 

studies  to  us  ?  Why  can  not  we  leave  them  to  a  few 
antiquaries  and  grammarians  ?  Sufficient  to  us  to 
know  the  laws  of  our  present  English,  to  obtain  an 
accurate  acquaintance  with  the  language  as  we  now 
find  it,  without  concerning  ourselves  with  the  phases 
through  which  it  has  previously  passed."  This  may 
sound  plausible  enough ;  and  I  can  quite  understand 
a  real  lover  of  his  native  tongue,  supposing  he  had 
not  bestowed  much  thought  upon  the  subject,  arguing 
in  this  manner.  And  yet  indeed  such  argument  pro- 
ceeds altogether  on  a  mistake.  One  sufficient  reason 
why  we  should  occupy  ourselves  with  the  past  of  our 
language  is,  because  the  present  is  only  intelligible  in 
the  light  of  the  past,  often  of  a  very  remote  past  in- 
deed. There  are  anomalies  out  of  number  now  exist- 
ing in  our  language,  which  the  pure  logic  of  grammar 
is  quite  incapable  of  explaining ;  which  nothing  but  a 
knowledge  of  its  historic  evolutions,  and  of  the  dis- 
turbing forces  which  have  made  themselves  felt  there- 
in, will  ever  enable  us  to  understand.  Even  as,  again, 
unless  we  possess  some  knowledge  of  the  past,  it  is 
impossible  that  we  can  ourselves  advance  a  single 
step  in  the  unfolding  of  the  latent  capabilities  of  the 
language,  without  the  danger  of  committing  some 
barbarous  violation  of  its  very  primary  laws. 

The  plan  which  I  have  laid  down  for  myself,  and 
to  which  I  shall  adhere,  in  this  lecture  and  in  those 
which  will  succeed  it,  is  as  follows  :  In  this  my  first 
lecture  I  will  ask  you  to  consider  the  language  as  now 
it  is,  to  decompose  with  me  some  specimens  of  it,  to 
prove  by  these  means  of  what  elements  it  is  compact, 
and  what  functions  in  it  these  elements  or  component 


16  ENGLISH    A    COMPOSITE   LANGUAGE. 

parts  severally  fulfil ;  nor  shall  I  leave  this  subject 
without  asking  you  to  admire  the  happy  marriage  in 
our  tongue  of  the  languages  of  the  North  and  South, 
an  advantage  which  it  alone  among  all  the  languages 
of  Europe  enjoys.  Having  thus  presented  to  ourselves 
the  body  which  we  wish  to  submit  to  scrutiny,  and 
having  become  acquainted,  however  slightly,  with  its 
composition,  I  shall  invite  you  to  go  back  with  me, 
and  trace  some  of  the  leading  changes  to  which  in 
time  past  it  has  been  submitted,  and  through  which 
it  has  arrived  at  what  it  now  is  ;  and  these  changes  I 
shall  contemplate  under  four  aspects,  dedicating  a 
lecture  to  each — changes  which  have  resulted  from 
the  birth  of  new,  or  the  reception  of  foreign,  words ; 
changes  consequent  on  the  rejection  or  extinction  of 
words  or  powers  once  possessed  by  the  language ; 
changes  through  the  altered  meaning  of  words ;  and 
lastly,  as  not  unworthy  of  our  attention,  but  often 
growing  out  of  very  deep  roots,  changes  in  the  orthog- 
raphy of  words. 

I  shall  everywhere  seek  to  bring  the  subject  down 
to  our  present  time,  and  not  merely  call  your  atten- 
tion to  the  changes  which  have  been,  but  to  those  also 
which  are  now  being,  effected.  I  shall  not  account 
the  fact  that  some  are  going  on,  so  to  speak,  before 
our  own  eyes,  a  sufficient  ground  to  excuse  me  from 
noticing  them,  but  rather  an  additional  reason  for 
doing  this.  For  indeed  changes  which  are  actually 
proceeding  in  our  own  time,  and  which  we  are  our- 
selves helping  to  bring  about,  are  the  very  ones  which 
we  are  most  likely  to  fail  in  observing.  There  is  so 
much  to  hide  the  nature  of  them,  and  indeed  their 
very  existence,  that,  except  it  may  be  by  a  very  few. 


ALTERATIONS    UN0BS1':KV^ED.  17 

they  will  often  pass  wholly  unobserved.  Loud  and 
sudden  revolutions  attract  and  compel  notice ;  but 
silent  and  gradual,  although  to  issue  perhaps  in 
changes  far  greater  and  deeper,  run  their  course,  and 
it  is  only  when  their  cycle  is  completed  or  nearly  so, 
that  men  perceive  what  mighty  transforming  forces 
have  been  at  work  unnoticed  in  the  very  midst  of 
themselves. 

Thus,  to  apply  what  I  have  just  affirmed  to  this 
matter  of  language — how  few  aged  persons,  let  them 
retain  the  fullest  possession  of  their  faculties,  are  con- 
scious of  any  difference  between  the  spoken  language 
of  their  early  youth  and  that  of  their  old  age ;  that 
words  and  ways  of  using  words  are  obsolete  now, 
which  were  usual  then  ;  that  many  words  are  current 
now,  which  had  no  existence  at  that  time  !  And  yet 
it  is  certain  that  so  it  must  be.  A  man  may  fairly  be 
supposed  to  remember  clearly  and  well  for  sixty  years 
back ;  and  it  needs  less  than  five  of  these  sixties  to 
bring  us  to  the  period  of  Spenser,  and  not  more  than 
eight  to  set  us  in  the  time  of  Chaucer  and  Wiclif. 
How  great  a  change,  how  vast  a  difference  in  our  lan- 
guage, within  eight  memories  !  No  one,  overlooking 
this  whole  term,  will  deny  the  greatness  of  the  change. 
For  all  this,  we  may  be  tolerably  sure  that,  had  it 
been  possible  to  interrogate  a  series  of  eight  persons, 
such  as  together  had  filled  up  this  time  —  intelligent 
men,  but  men  whose  attention  had  not  been  especially 
roused  to  this  subject — each  in  his  turn  would  have 
denied  that  there  had  been  any  change  worth  speak- 
ing of,  perhaps  any  change  at  all,  during  his  lifetime. 
And  yet,  having  regard  to  the  multitude  of  words 
which  have  fallen  into  disuse  during  these  four  or  five 


18  ENGLISH    A   COMPOSITE   LANGUAGE. 

hundred  years,  we  are  sure  that  there  must  have  been 
some  lives  in  this  chain  which  saw  those  words  in  use 
at  their  commencement,  and  out  of  use  before  their 
close.  And  so,  too,  of  the  multitude  of  words  which 
have  sprung  up  in  this  period — some,  nay,  a  vast 
number,  must  have  come  into  being  within  the  limits 
of  each  of  these  lives.  It  can  not  then  be  superfluous 
to  direct  attention  to  that  which  is  actually  going  for- 
ward in  our  language.  It  is  indeed  that,  which  of 
all  is  most  likely  to  be  unnoticed  by  us. 

With  these  preliminary  remarks  I  proceed  at  once 
to  the  special  subject  of  my  lecture  of  to-day.  And 
first,  starting  from  the  recognised  fact  that  the  Eng- 
lish is  not  a  simple  but  a  composite  language,  made 
up  of  several  elements,  in  the  same  way  as  we  are  a 
people  made  up  of  Anglo-Saxons  and  Anglo-Normans, 
with  not  a  few  accessions  from  other  quarters  besides, 
I  would  suggest  to  you  the  profit  and  instruction 
which  we  might  derive  from  seeking  to  resolve  it  into 
its  component  parts — from  taking,  that  is,  any  pas- 
sage of  an  English  author,  distributing  the  words  of 
which  it  is  made  up  according  to  the  languages  from 
which  we  have  drawn  them ;  estimating  the  relative 
numbers  and  proportions  which  these  languages  have 
severally  lent  us ;  as  well  as  the  character  of  the 
words  which  they  have  thrown  into  the  common  stock 
of  our  tongue. 

Thus,  suppose  the  English  language  to  be  divided 
into  a  hundred  parts :  of  these,  to  make  a  rough  dis- 
tribution, sixty  would  be  Saxon ;  thirty  would  be 
Latin  (including,  of  course,  the  Latin  which  has  come 
to  us  through  the  French)  ;  five  would  be  Greek.     We 


PROPORTIONS   IN    ENGLISH.  19 

should  thus  have  assigned  ninety  five  parts,  leaving 
the  other  five,  perhaps  too  large  a  residue,  to  be  di- 
vided among  all  the  other  languages  from  which  we 
have  adopted  isolated  words.  And  yet  these  are  not 
few;  from  our  widely-extendeck  colonial  empire  we 
come  in  contact  with  half  the  world ;  we  have  picked 
up  words  in  every  quarter,  and,  the  English  language 
possessing  a  great  power  of  incorporating  foreign  ele- 
ments into  itself,  have  not  scrupled  to  make  many  of 
these  our  own. 

Thus  we  have  a  certain  number  of  Hebrew  words, 
mostly,  if  not  entirely,  belonging  to  religious  matters 
— as  '  amen,'  '  cabala,'  ^  cherub,'  '  ephod,'  '  gehenna,' 
'  hallelujah,' '  hosanna,'  'jubilee,'  '  manna,'  '  Messiah,' 
'  sabbath,'  '  seraph,'  '  shibboleth.'  The  Arabic  words 
in  our  language  are  more  numerous ;  we  have  several 
arithmetical  and  astronomical  terms,  as  '  algebra,' 
'  almanach,'  '  azimuth,'  '  cypher,'*  '  nadir,'  *  talisman,' 

*  zenith,'  '  zero  ;'  and  chemical,  for  the  Arabs  were  the 
chemists,  no  less  than  the  astronomers  and  arithmeti- 
cians, of  the  middle  ages ;  as  '  alcohol,'  '  alembic,' 

*  alkali,'  '  elixir.'  Add  to  these  the  names  of  animals, 
plants,  fruits,  or  articles  of  merchandise,  first  intro- 
duced by  them  to  the  notice  of  western  Europe ;  as 

*  amber,'  '  artichoke,'  '  barragan,'  '  camphor,' '  coffee,' 

*  cotton,'  '  crimson,' '  gazelle,'  '  giraffe,'  'jar,  'jasmin,' 
'  lake'  (lacca),  '  lemon,'  '  lime,'  '  lute,'  '  mattress,' 
'  mummy,' '  saffron,' '  sherbet,' '  shrub,' '  sofa,' '  sugar,' 
'  syrup,'  '  tamarind  ;'  and  some  further  terms,  '  admi- 
ral,' '  arsenal,' '  assassin,'  '  barbican,' '  caliph,' '  caffre,' 
'carat,' '  divan,' '  dragoman,'f  'emir,'  'fakir,'  'harem,' 

*  Yet  see  J.  Grimm,  Deutsche  Mythologie,  p.  985. 

t  The  word  hardly  deserves  to  be  called  English,  yet  in  Pope's 


20  ENGLISH   A    COMPOSITE   LANGUAGE. 

^  hazard,'  '  houri/  '  magazine,' '  mamaluke,' '  minaret,' 
'  monsoon,'  '  mosque,'  '  nabob,' '  razzia,'  '  sahara,'  '  si- 
moom,' 'sirocco,'  *  sultan,'  '  tarif,'  'vizier'  —  and  I 
believe  we  shall  have  nearly  completed  the  list.  We 
have  moreover  a  few  Persian  words,  as  '  azure,'  '  ba- 
zaar,' '  caravan,'  '  caravanserai,'  '  chess,'  '  dervish,' 
'  lilac,'  '  orange,'  '  saraband,'  '  taffeta,'  '  tambour,' 
'  turban  ;'  this  last  appearing  in  strange  forms  at  its 
first  introduction  into  the  language :  thus,  '  tolibant' 
(Puttenham),  '  tulipant'  (Herbert's  Travels),  '  turri- 
bant'  (Spenser),  '  turbat,'  '  turbant,'  and  at  length 
'turban.'  We  have  also  a  few  Turkish,  such  as 
'tulip,'  'chouse,'  'sash,'  'janisary.'  Of  '  civet' and 
'  scimitar'  I  believe  it  can  only  be  asserted  that  they 
are  Eastern.  The  following  are  Hindostanee, '  calico,' 
'  chintz,'  '  cowrie,'  '  lac,'  '  muslin,'  '  punch,'  '  toddy.' 
'  Tea,'  or  '  tcha,'  as  it  is  spelt  in  our  early  dictiona- 
ries, is  of  course  Chinese  ;  so,  too,  '  satin.' 

The  New  World  has  given  us  a  certain  number  of 
words,  Indian  and  other — 'cacique'  (' cassiqui'  in 
Raleigh's  Guiana),  '  chocolate,'  '  cocoa,'  '  condor,' 
'  hamoc'  ('  hamaca'  in  Raleigh), '  lama,' '  maize'  (Hay- 
tian),  '  pampas,' '  pemmican,' '  potato'  ('  batata'  in  our 
earlier  voyagers),  '  raccoon,'  '  squaw,'  '  tobacco,'  '  to- 
mato' (Mexican), '  wigwam.'  If  '  hurricane'  is  a  word 
which  Europe  originally  obtained  from  the  Caribbean 

time  it  had  made  some  progress  toward  naturalization.  Of  a  real  or 
pretended  polyglottist,  who  might  thus  have  served  as  a  universal 
interpreter,  he  says  : — 

"  Pity  you  was  not  druggerman  at  Babel." 

'Truckman,'  or  more  commonly  'truchman/  familiar  to  all  readers 
of  our  early  literature,  is  only  another  form  of  this,  one  which  proba- 
bly has  come  to  us  through  *  turcimanno,'  the  Italian  form  of  the 
word. 


ITALIAN    AND   SPANISH   WORDS.  21 

islanders,*  it  should  of  course  be  included  in  this  list. 
A  certain  number  of  words  also  we  have  received, 
one  by  one,  from  various  languages,  which  sometimes 
have  not  bestowed  on  us  more  than  this  single  one: 
Thus  ^  mammoth'  is  a  Siberian  word,  '  tattoo'  Poly- 
nesian, '  steppe'  Tartarian  ;  '  sago' '  bamboo,'  *  rattan,' 

*  ourang-outang,'  are  all,  I  believe,  Malay  words ; 
'  assegai,'  '  zebra,'  '  chimpanzee,'  belong  to  different 
African  dialects. 

To  come.,  nearer  home — we  have  a  certain  number 
of  Italian  words,  as  *  balcony,'  '  baldachin,'  '  balus- 
trade,' '  bravo,'  *  bust'  (it  was  '  busto'  as  first  used  in 
English,  and  therefore  from  the  Italian,  not  from  the 
French),  'cameo,'  *  canto,'  'caricature,'  '  carneval,' 
'  charlatan,' ' cupola,' '  ditto,'  'fresco,' '  gazette,' '  gon- 
dola,' '  grotto'  ('  grotta'  is  the  earliest  form  in  which 
we  have  it  in  English), '  harlequin,' '  influenza,' '  lava,' 

*  macaroni,'  '  manifesto,' '  motto,' '  opera,' '  pantaloon,' 
'  piazza,'  '  portico,'  '  regatta,'  '  scaramouch,'  '  sequin,' 
'  seraglio,' '  sirocco,' '  stanza,' '  stiletto,' '  stucco,' '  um- 
brella,' '  virtuoso,'  '  vista,'  '  volcano,'  '  zany.'  '  Fan- 
tastico'  and  '  magnifico,'  both  common  enough  once, 
are  now  used  no  longer.  If  these  are  at  all  the  whole 
number  of  our  Italian  words — and  I  can  not  call  to 
mind  any  other — the  Spanish  in  the  language  are  at 
least  as  numerous ;  which  indeed  is  not  much  to  be 
wondered  at,  for  our  points  of  contact  with  Spain, 
friendly  and  hostile,  have  been  much  more  real  than 
with  Italy.  Thus  we  have  from  the  Spanish  '  alliga- 
tor' ('  el  lagarto'),  '  alcove,'!  '  armada,'  '  armadillo,' 

*  See  Washington  Irving,  Life  and  Voyages  of  Columbus,  book  viii., 
chap. ix. 

t  On  the  question  whether  this  ought  not  to  have  been  included 
among  the  Arabic,  see  Diez,  Worterhuch  d.  Roman.  Sprachen,  p.  10. 


22  EI^GLISH    A    COMPOSITE   LANGUAGE. 

'  barricade,'  '  bravado,'  '  caiban,'  '  cambist,'  '  carbo- 
Dado,'  '  cargo,'  '  cigar,'  '  Creole,'  '  desperado,'  '  don,' 

*  duenna,' '  embargo,' '  flotilla,'  *  gala,' '  grandee,' '  gre- 
nade,' *  jennet,'  'junto,'  *  mosquito,'  *  mulatto,'  'negro,' 

*  olio,' '  ombre, '  palaver,' '  parroquet,' '  platina,' '  pon- 
cho,' '  punctilio'  (for  a  long  time  spelt  '  puntillo'  in 
English  books),  '  savannah,'  '  sherry,'  '  strappado,' 
'  tornado,'  '  vanilla,'  '  verandah.'  '  Buffalo'  also  is 
Spanish,  '  buff'  or  '  buffle'  being  the  proper  English 
word  ;  '  caprice'  too  we  probably  obtained  rather  from 
Spain  than  Italy,  as  we  find  it  written  '  capricho'  by 
those  who  used  it  first.  Other  Spanish  words,  once 
familiar  enough,  are  now  extinct.  '  Privado,'  signi- 
fying a  prince's  favorite,  which  for  a  long  time  kept 
its  place  in  English  (it  is  no  uncommon  word  in  Jei^- 
emy  Taylor  and  Fuller),  has  quite  disappeared;  so 
has  '  quirpo,'  the  name  given  to  a  jacket  fitting  close 
to  the  body  ('  cuerpo')  ;  and  '  matachin,'  the  title  of 
a  sword-dance,  and  '  quellio'  ('cuello'),  a  ruff  or  neck- 
collar  ;  these  are  all  frequent  in  our  early  dramatists. 
'  Mandarin'  is  our  only  Portuguese  word  I  can  call  to 
mind.  A  good  many  of  our  sea-terms  are  Dutch,  as 
'  sloop,'  '  schooner,'  '  yacht,'  *  boom,'  '  skipper,'  '  taf- 
ferel,'  '  to  smuggle  ;'  '  to  wear,'  in  the  sense  of  veer, 
as  when  we  say  '  to  wear  a  ship ;'  '  skates.'  Celtic 
thing's  are  for  the  most  part  designated  among  us  by 
Celtic  words,  such  as  '  bard,'  '  kilt,'  *  clan,'  '  pibroch,' 
'  plaid,'  '  reel.'  Nor  only  such  as  these,  which  are  all 
of  them  comparatively  jf  modera  introduction,  but  a 
considerable  number — how  large  a  number  is  yet  a 
very  unsettled  question  —  of  words  which  at  a  much 
earlier  date  found  admission  into  our  tongue,  are  de- 
rived from  this  quarter. 


ANALYSIS   OF   ENGLISH.  23 

.  Now,  of  course,  I  have  no  right  to  presume  that 
any  among  us  are  equipped  with  that  knowledge  of 
other  tongues  which  shall  enable  us  to  detect  of  our- 
selves and  at  once  the  nationality  of  all  or  most  of 
the  words  which  we  may  meet — some  of  them  greatly 
disguised,  and  having  undergone  manifold  transforma- 
tions in  the  process  of  their  adoption  among  us ;  but 
only  that  we  have  such  helps  at  command  in  the 
shape  of  dictionaries  and  the  like,  and  so  much  dili- 
gence in  their  use,  as  will  enable  us  to  discover  the 
quarter  from  which  the  words  we  may  encounter  have 
reached  us ;  and  I  will  confidently  say  that  few  stud- 
ies of  the  kind  will  be  more  fruitful,  will  suggest  more 
various  matter-  of  reflection,  will  more  lead  you  into 
the  secrets  of  the  English  tongue,  than  an  analysis  of 
a  certain  number  of  passages  drawn  from  different 
authors,  such  as  I  have  just  now  proposed.  For  this 
analysis  you  will  take  some  passage  of  English  verse 
or  prose  —  say  the  first  ten  lines  of  Paradise  Lost — 
or  the  Lord's  Prayer — or  the  twenty-third  Psalm; 
you  will  distribute  the  whole  body  of  words  contained 
in  that  passage,  of  course  not  omitting  the  smallest, 
according  to  their  nationalities — writing,  it  may  be, 
A  over  every  Anglo-Saxon  word,  L  over  every  Latin, 
and  so  on  with  the  others,  if  any  other  should  occur 
in  the  portion  which  you  have  submitted  to  this  ex- 
amination. When  this  is  done,  you  will  count  up  the 
number  of  those  which  each  language  contributes ; 
again,  you  will  note  the  character  of  the  words  de- 
rived from  each  quarter. 

Yet  here,  before  I  pass  further,  I  would  observe  in 
respect  of  those  which  come  from  the  Latin,  that  it 
will  be  desii-able  further  to  mark  whether  they  are 


24  ENGLISH   A    COMPOSITE   LANGUAGE. 

directly  from  it,  and  such  might  be  marked  L^,  or 
only  mediately  from  it ;  and  to  us  directly  from  the 
French,  which  would  be  L^,  or  L  at  second  hand  — 
our  English  word  being  only  in  the  second  generation 
descended  from  the  Latin  —  not  the  child,  but  the 
child's  child.  There  is  a  rule  that  holds  pretty  con- 
stantly good,  by  which  you  may  generally  determine 
this  point.  It  is  this  —  that  if  a  word  be  directly 
from  the  Latin,  it  will  not  have  undergone  any  alter- 
ation or  modification  in  its  form  and  shape,  save  only 
^s  respects  the  termination :  '  innocentia'  will  have 
become  '  innocency,'  *  natio'  will  have  become  '  na- 
tion,' *  firmamentum'  '  firmament,'  but  nothing  more. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  it  comes  throygh  the  French,  it 
will  generally  be  considerably  altered  in  its  passage. 
It  will  have  undergone  a  process  of  lubrication ;  its 
sharply-defined  Latin  outline  will  in  good  part  have 
departed  from  it ;  thus  '  crown'  is  from  '  corona,'  but 
through  '  couronne,'  and  itself  a  dyssyllable, '  coroune,' 
in  our  earlier  English  ;  '  treasure'  is  from  '  thesaurus,' 
but  through  '  tresor ;'  '  emperor'  is  the  Latin  '  impera- 
tor,'  but  it  was  first  '  empereur.'  It  will  not  at  all 
uncommonly  happen  that  the  substantive  has  passed 
to  us  through  this  process,  having  come  through  the 
intervention  of  the  French ;  while  we  have  only  felt 
at  a  later  period  our  want  of  the  adjective  also,  which 
we  have  proceeded  to  borrow  direct  from  the  Latin. 
Thus,  *  people'  is  indeed  '  populus,'  but  it  was  '  peuple' 
first,  while  '  popular'  is  a  direct  transfer  of  a  Latin 
vocable  into  our  English  glossary.  So  too  '  enemy' 
is  '  inimicus,'  but  it  was  first  softened  in  the  French, 
and  had  its  Latin  physiognomy  to  a  great  degree 
obliterated,   while   '  inimical'   is   Latin   throughout ; 


DOUBLE   ADOPTIONS.  Zb 

'  parish'  is   *  paroiss6,'  but  '  parochiar  is   *  parochi- 
alis.' 

SometinYes  you  will  find  in  English  what  I  may  call 
a  double  adoption  of  a  Latin  word ;  I  mean  that  we 
have  many  Latin  words  which  now  make  part  of  our 
vocabulary  in  two  shapes,  in  both  these  forms  Q  dop- 
pelgangers'  the  Germans  would  call  them),  directly 
from  the  Latin,  and  mediately  through  the  French. 
In  these  cases  it  will  be  particularly  noticeable  how 
that  which  has  come  through  the  French  has  been 
shaped  and  moulded,  generally  cut  short,  often  cut  a 
syllable  or  two  shorter  (for  the  French  devours  letters 
and  syllables)  than  the  Latin.  I  will  mention  a  few 
examples :  '  secure'  and  '  sure,'  both  from  the  Latin 
'  securus,'  but  one  directly,  the  other  through  the 
French ;  '  fidelity'  and  '  fealty,'  both  from  the  Latin 
'  fidelitas,'  but  one  directly,  the  other  at  second-hand ; 
'  species'  and  '  spice,'  both  from  the  Latin  '  species,' 
spices  being  properly  only  kinds  of  aromatic  drugs ; 
*  blaspheme'  and  '  blame,'  both  from  '  blasphemare,'* 
but '  blame'  immediately  from  '  blamer ;'  add  to  these 
'  granary'  and  '  garner  ;'  '  tradition'  and  '  treason  ;' 
'  regality'  and '  royalty ;' '  hospital'  and  '  hotel ;'  '  digit' 
and  '  doit ;'  '  pagan'  and  '  paynim  ;'  '  captive'  and  '  cai- 
tiff ;'  '  persecute'  and  '  pursue  ;'  '  superficies'  and  '  sur- 
face ;'  '  faction'  and '  fashion  ;'  '  particle'  and  '  parcel ;' 
'  redemption'  and  '  rane  om  ;'  '  probe'  and  '  prove ;' 
'  abbreviate'  and  '  abridge  ;'  '  dormitory'  and  '  dortoir' 
or  '  dorter'  (this  last  now  obsolete,  but  common  enough 
in  Jeremy  Taylor)  ;  ^  radius'  and  '  ray  ;'  '  potion'  and 

*  This  particular  instance  of  double  adoption,  or  dimorphism,  as 
Latham  calls  it,  recurs  in  Italian,  '  bestemmiare'  and  'biasimare;' 
and  in  Spanish,  'blasfemar'  and  'lastimar.' 

2 


2b  ENGLISH    A    COMPOSITE   LANGUAGE. 

'  poison  ;'  '  ration'  and  '  reason  ;'  '  oration'  and  '  ori- 
son.'* I  have,  in  the  instancing  of  these,  named  al- 
ways the  Latin  form  before  the  French ;  but  the  re- 
verse is  in  almost  every  case  the  order  in  which  the 
words  were  adopted  by  us :  we  had  '  pursue'  before 

*  persecute,'  '  spice'  before  '  species,'  ^  royalty'  before 

*  regality,'  and  so  for  the  most  part  with  the  others. f 

The  explanation  of  this  greater  change  which  the 
earlier  form  of  the  word  has  undergone,  is  not  far  to 
seek.  Words  which  have  been  introduced  into  a  lan- 
guage at  an  early  period,  when  as  yet  writing  is  rare, 
and  books  are  few  or  none — when  therefore  orthog- 
raphy is  unfixed,  or,  being  purely  phonetic,  can  not 
properly  be  said  to  exist  at  all — such  words  for  a 
long  while  live  orally  on  the  lips  of  men,  before  they 
are  set  down  in  writing ;  and  out  of  this  fact  it  is  that 
we  shall  for  the  most  part  find  them  reshaped  and  re- 
moulded by  the  people  who  have  adopted  them,  en- 
tirely assimilated  to  their  language  in  form  and  ter- 

*  Somewhat  different  from  this,  yet  itself  also  curious,  is  the  pas- 
sing of  an  Anglo-Saxon  word  in  two  different  forms  into  English,  and 
continuing  in  both;  thus,  'desk' and  'dish,' both  the  Anglo-Saxon 
'disc,'  the  German  *  tisch ;'  '  beech'  and  *  book,'  both  the  Anglo-Saxon 

*  boc,' our  first  hooks  heing  beechen  tablets  (see  Grimm,  Worterbuch, 
s.  vv.  'Buch,'  'Buche');  'girdle'  and  'kirtle,'  both  of  them  corre- 
sponding to  the  German  'giirtel;'  already  in  Anglo-Saxon  a  double 
spelling,  'gyrdel,'  'cyrtel,'  had  prepared  for  the  double  woi'ds ;  so  too 
'haunch'  and  'hinge;'  'lady'  and  'lofty;'  'deal'  and  'dole;'  'weald' 
and  'wood;'  'shirt'  and  'skirt;'  'black'  and  'bleak;'  'pond' and 
'  pound.'  It  may  be  a  question  whether  '  wayward'  and  '  awkward' 
would  not  have  a  right  to  be  mentioned  as  examples  of  this. 

t  We  have  in  the  same  way  double  adoptions  from  the  Greek  :  one 
direct,  at  least  as  regards  the  forms ;  one  modified  by  its  passage 
through  some  other  language ;  thus,  '  adamant'  and  '  diamond ;' 
'monastery'  and  'minster;*  'scandal'  and  'slander;'  'theriac'  and 
'treacle;'  'asphodel' and  '  daffodil ;'  '  presbyter' and  '  priest.' 


DOUBLE   ADOPTIONS   IN   FRENCH.  27 

mination,  so  as  in  a  little  while  to  be  almost  or  quite 
indistinguishable  from  natives.  On  the  other  hand, 
a  most  efibctual  che<;k  to  this  process  —  a  process 
sometimes  barbarizing  and  defacing,  however  it  may  be 
the  only  one  which  will  make  the  new  entirely  homo- 
geneous with  the  old — is  imposed  by  the  existence  of 
a  much-written  language  and  a  full-formed  literature. 
The  foreign  word,  being  once  adopted  into  these,  can 
no  longer  undergo  a  thorough  transformation.  For 
the  most  part  the  utmost  which  use  and  familiarity  can 
do  with  it  now  is,  to  cause  the  gradual  dropping  of 
the  foreign  termination.  Yet  this,  too,  is  not  unim 
portant ;  it  often  goes  far  to  making  a  home  for  a 
word,  and  hindering  it  from  wearing  the  appearance 
of  a  foreigner  and  stranger.* 


*  The  French  itself  has  also  a  double  adoption,  or  as  perhaps  we 
should  more  accurately  call  it  there,  a  double  formation,  from  the 
Latin,  and  one  quite  bearing  out  what  has  been  said  above :  one 
ftDing  far  back  in  the  history  of  the  language,  the  other  belonging  to 
a  later  and  more  literary  period.  Thus  from  '  separare'  is  derived 
'sevrer,'  to  separate  the  child  from  its  mother's  breast,  to  wean,  but 
also  '  separer,'  without  this  special  sense ;  from  '  pastor'  *  patre,'  a 
shepherd  in  the  literal,  and  *  pasteur'  the  same  in  a  tropical,  sense  ; 
from  '  catena,'  *  chaine'  and  '  cad^ne ;'  from  *  pensare,'  *  peser'  and 
'penser;'  from  'gehcnna,'  'gene' and  *g6henne;'  from  'captivus,' 
'chetif  and  'captif;'  from  *  nativus,'  'naif  and  'natif;'  from  'desig- 
nare,'  'dessiner'  and  'designer;'  from  'decimare,'  'dimer'  and  'd6ci- 
raer;'  from  'homo,'  'on'  and  'homme  ;'  from  '  paganus,'  'payen'and 
'paysan;'  from  ' obedientia,'  'ob^issance'  and  'obedience;'  from 
'  strictus,'  *  etroit'  and  '  strict ;'  from  '  sacramentum,'  '  serment'  and 
'sacreraent;'  from  * ministerium,'  'metier'  and  *  ministere ;'  from 
'parabola,'  'parole'  and  'parabole;'  from  ' peregrinus,'  'pelerin'  and 
•peregrin;'  from  'factio,'  'fa^on'  and  'faction,'  and  they  have  now 
adopted  'factio'  in  a  third  shape,  that  is,  in  our  English  'fashion  ;' 
from 'capitulum,'  'chapitre'  and  'capitule,'  a  botanical  term.  So, 
too,  in  Italian  'manco,'  maimed,  and  '  monco,'  maimed  of  a  hand* 
'  rifutdrc,'  to  refute,  and  '  rifiutarc,'  to  refuse. 


28  ENGLISH   A    COMPOSITE   LANGUAGE. 

But  to  return  from  this  digression  :  I  said  just  now 
that  you  would  learn  very  much  from  observing  and 
calculating  the  proportions  in  which  the  words  of  one 
descent  and  those  of  another  occur  in  any  passage 
which  you  analyze.  Thus  examine  the  Lord's  Prayer. 
It  consists  of  exactly  sixty  words.  You  will  find  that 
only  the  following  six  claim  the  rights  of  Latin  citizen- 
ship :  '  trespasses,'  '  trespass,  '  temptation,'  '  deliver,' 
*  power,'  '  glory.'  Nor  would  it  be  very  difficult  to 
substitute  for  any  one  of  these  a  Saxon  word.  Thus 
for  '  trespasses'  might  be  substituted  '  sins  ;'  for  *  de- 
liver' '  free  ;'  for  '  power'  '  might ;'  for  *  glory'  *  bright- 
ness ;'  which  would  only  leave  '  temptation,'  about 
which  there  could  be  the  slightest  difficulty,  and  '  tri- 
als,' though  we  now  ascribe  to  the  word  a  somewhat 
different  sense,  would  in  fact  exactly  correspond  to  it. 
This  is  but  a  small  percentage,  six  words  in  sixty,  the 
proportion,  that  is,  of  ten  in  the  hundred  ;  and  we 
often  light  upon  a  still  smaller  proportion.  Thus 
take  the  first  three  verses  of  the  twenty-third  Psalm : 
"  The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd ;  therefore  can  I  lack 
nothing ;  he  shall  feed  me  in  a  green  pasture,  and 
lead  me  forth  beside  the  waters  of  comfort;  he  shall 
convert  my  soul,  and  bring  me  forth  in  the  paths  of 
righteousness  for  his  name's  sake."  Here  are  forty- 
five  words,  and  only  the  three  in  italics  are  Latin ; 
and  for  every  one  of  these,  too,  it  would  be  easy  to 
substitute  a  word  of  Saxon  origin  ;  little  more,  that  is, 
than  the  proportion  of  seven  in  the  hundred ;  while, 
still  stronger  than  this,  in  five  verses  out  of  Genesis, 
containing  one  hundred  and  thirty  words,  there  are 
only  five  not  Saxon — less,  that  is,  than  four  in  the 
hundred. 


ANGLO-SAXON   AND   LATIN.  29 

Shall  we  therefore  conclude  that  these  are  the  pro- 
portions in  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  Latin  elements 
of  the  language  stand  to  one  another  ?  If  they  are 
so,  then  my  former  proposal  to  express  their  relations 
by  sixty  and  thirty  was  greatly  at  fault ;  and  seventy 
and  twenty,  or  even  eighty  and  ten,  would  fall  short 
of  adequately  representing  the  real  predominance  of 
the  Saxon  over  the  Latin  element  of  the  language. 
But  it  is  not  so  ;  the  Anglo-Saxon  words  by  no  means 
outnumber  the  Latin  in  the  degree  which  the  analysis 
of  those  passages  would  seem  to  imply.  It  is  not  that 
there  are  so  many  more  Anglo-Saxon  words,  but  that 
the  words  which  there  are,  being  words  of  more  pri- 
mary necessity,  do  therefore  so  much  more  frequently 
recur.  The  proportions  which  the  analysis  of  the 
dictionary,  that  is,  of  the  language  at  rest,  would  fur- 
nish, are  very  different  from  these  which  I  have  just 
instanced,  and  which  the  analysis  of  sentences,  or  of 
the  language  in  motion,  gives. 

The  notice  of  this  fact  will  lead  us  to  some  very  im- 
portant conclusions  as  to  the  character  of  the  words 
which  the  Saxon  and  the  Latin  severally  furnish ;  and 
principally  to  this :  that  while  the  English  language 
is  thus  compact  in  the  main  of  these  two  elements,  we 
must  not  for  all  this  regard  these  two  as  making,  ono 
and  the  other,  exactly  the  same  kind  of  contributions 
to  it.  On  the  contrary,  their  contributions  are  of 
very  different  character.  The  Anglo-Saxon  is  not  so 
much,  as  I  have  just  called  it,  one  element  of  the 
English  language,  as  the  foundation  of  it,  the  basis. 
All  its  joints,  its  whole  articulation,  its  sinews  and  its 
ligaments,  the  great  body  of  articles,  pronouns,  con- 
junctions, prepositions,  numerals,  auxiliary  verbs,  all 


so  ENGLISH  A   COMPOSITE  LANGUAGE. 

smaller  words  which  serve  to  knit  together  and  bind 
the  larger  into  sentences — these,  not  to  speak  of  the 
grammatical  structure  of  the  language,  are  exclusively 
Saxon.  The  Latin  may  contribute  its  tale  of  bricks, 
yea,  of  goodly  and  polished  hewn  stones,  to  the  spir- 
itual building;  but  the  mortar,  with  all  that  holds 
and  binds  the  different  parts  of  it  together,  and  con- 
stitutes them  into  a  house,  is  Saxon  throughout.  I 
remember  Selden,  in  his  Table-Talk^  using  another 
comparison,  but  to  the  same  effect :  "  If  you  look  upon 
the  language  spoken  in  the  Saxon  time,  and  the  lan- 
guage spoken  now,  you  will  find  the  difference  to  be 
just  as  if  a  man  had  a  cloak  which  he  wore  plain  in 
Queen  Elizabeth's  days ;  and  since,  here  has  put  in  a 
piece  of  red,  and  there  a  piece  of  blue ;  and  here  a 
piece  of  green,  and  there  a  piece  of  orange-tawny. 
We  borrow  words  from  the  French,  Italian,  Latin,  as 
every  pedantic  man  pleases." 

I  believe  this  to  be  the  law  which  holds  good  in 
respect  of  all  composite  languages.  However  com- 
posite they  may  be,  yet  they  are  only  so  in  regard  of 
their  words.  There  may  be  a  medley  in  respect  of 
these,  some  coming  from  one  quarter,  some  from  an- 
other :  but  there  is  never  a  mixture  of  grammatical 
forms  and  inflections.  One  or  other  language  entirely 
predominates  here,  and  everything  has  to  conform  and 
subordinate  itself  to  the  laws  of  this  ruling  and  as- 
cendant language.  The  Anglo-Saxon  is  the  ruling 
language  in  our  present  English ;  while  that  has 
thought  good  to  drop  its  genders,  even  so  the  French 
substantives  which  come  among  us  must  also  leave 
theirs  behind  them ;  as  in  like  manner  the  French 
verbs  must  renounce  their  own  conjugations,  and  adapt 


ONE  GRAMMAR  PREDOMINANT.  31 

themselves  to  ours.*  I  believe  that  a  remarkable  par- 
allel to  this  might  be  found  in  the  language  of  Persia, 
since  the  conquest  of  that  country  by  the  Arabs.  The 
ancient  Persian  religion  fell  with  the  government,  but 
the  language  remained  totally  unaffected  by  the  revo- 
lution, in  its  grammatical  structure  and  character. 
Arabic  vocables,  the  only  exotic  words  found  in  Per- 
sian, are  found,  as  1  understand,  in  numbers  varying 
with  the  object  and  quality,  style  and  taste  of  the 
writers ;  but  pages  of  pure,  idiomatic  Persian  may 
be  written  without  employing  a  single  word  from  the 
Arabic. 

At  the  same  time  the  secondary  or  superinduced 
language,  even  while  it  is  quite  unable  to  force  any  of 
its  forms  on  the  language  which  receives  its  words, 
may  yet  compel  that  to  renounce  a  portion  of  its  own 
forms,  by  the  impossibility  which,  is  practically  found 
to  exist  of  making  them  fit  the  new-comers  ;  and  thus 
it  may  exert,  although  not  a  positive,  yet  a  negative, 
influence  on  the  grammar  of  the  other  tongue.  It 
has  been  so,  as  is  generally  admitted,  in  the  instance 
of  our  own.  "  When  the  English  language  was  in- 
undated by  a  vast  influx  of  French  words,  few,  if  any, 
French  forms  were  received  into  its  grammar ;  but 
the  Saxon  forms  soon  dropped  away,  because  they 
did  not  suit  the  new  roots ;  and  the  genius  of  the 
language,  from  having  to  deal  with  the  newly-import- 
ed words  in  a  rude  state,  was  induced  to  neglect  the 
inflections  of  the  native  ones.  Tliis,  for  instance,  led 
to  the  introduction  of  the  s  as  the  universal  termina- 

*  W.  Schlegel  {Indische  Bibliothek,  vol.  i.,  p.  284) :  "  Coeunt  quidem 
paullatim  in  novum  corpus  peregrina  vocabula,  sed  graramatica  lio 
guarum,  unde  petitae  sunt,  ratio  perit." 


82  ENGLISH   A   COMPOSITE   LANGUAGE. 

tion  of  all  plural  nouns,  which  agreed  with  the  usage 
of  the  French  language,  and  was  not  alien  from  that 
of  the  Saxon,  but  was  merely  an  extension  of  the 
termination  of  the  ancient  masculine  to  other  classes 
of  nouns."* 

If  any  of  you  should  wish  to  convince  yourselves, 
by  actual  experience,  of  the  fact  which  I  just  now 
asserted,  namely,  that  the  radical  constitution  of  the 
language  is  Saxon,  I  would  say,  try  to  compose  a 
sentence,  it  need  not  be  more  than  of  ten  or  a  dozen 
words,  on  any  subject  you  please,  employing  therein 
only  words  which  are  of  a  Latin  derivation.  You  will 
find  it  impossible,  or  next  to  impossible,  to  do  it ; 
whichever  way  you  turn,  some  obstacle  will  meet  you 
in  the  face.  And  wliile  it  is  thus  with  the  Latin, 
whole  pages  might  be  written,  I  do  not  say  in  philos- 
ophy or  theology  or  upon  any  abstruser  subject,  but 
on  familiar  matters  of  common  everyday  life,  in  which 
every  word  should  be  of  Saxon  extraction,  not  one 
of  Latin ;  and  these  pages,  in  which,  with  the  exer- 
cise of  a  very  little  skill,  all  appearance  of  awkward- 
ness and  constraint  should  be  avoided,  so  that  it 
should  never  occur  to  the  reader,  unless  otherwise 
informed,  that  the  writer  had  submitted  himself  to 
this  restraint  and  limitation  in  the  words  which  he 
employed,  and  was  only  drawing  them  from  one  sec- 
tion of  the  English  language.  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
has  given  several  long  paragraphs  so  constructed. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  following,  which  is  only  a  little 
fragment  of  one  of  them :  "  The  first  and  foremost  step 
to  all  good  works  is  the  dread  and  fear  of  the  Lord 
of  heaven  and  earth,  which  through  the  Holy  Ghost 

*  J.  Grimm,  quoted  in  the  Philological  Museum,  vol.  i.,  p.  667. 


CONNECTING   WORDS  SAXON.  33 

enlightenetli  the  blindness  of  our  sinful  hearts  to  tread 
the  ways  of  wii?dom,  and  lead  our  feet  into  the  land 
of  blessing."*  This  is  not  stiffer  than  the  ordinary 
p]nglish  of  his  time.  I  would  suggest  to  you  at  your 
leisure  to  make  these  two  experiments.  Endeavor 
first  to  compose  a  sentence  of  some  length,  choosing 
freely  your  subject,  from  which  every  word  which  the 
Saxon  has  contributed  to  our  tongue  shall  be  rigidly 
excluded :  you  will  find  it  at  least,  if  I  may  judge  by 
my  own  experience,  wholly  beyond  your  power.  On 
the  other  hand,  with  a  little  patience  and  ingenuity 
you  will  be  able  to  compose  a  connected  narrative  of 
any  length  you  please  into  which  no  word  from  the 
Latin  shall  be  admitted,  in  which  none  but  Saxon 
shall  be  employed. 

While  thus  I  bring  before  you  the  fact  that  it  would 
be  quite  possible  to  write  English,  foregoing  altogeth- 
er the  use  of  the  Latin  portion  of  the  language,  I  would 
not  have  you  therefore  to  conclude  that  this  portion 
of  the  language  is  of  little  value,  or  that  we  could 
draw  from  the  resources  of  our  Teutonic  tongue  effi- 
cient substitutes  for  all  the  words  which  it  has  con- 
tributed to  our  glossary.  I  am  persuaded  that  we 
could  not ;  and,  if  we  could,  that  it  would  not  be  de- 
sirable. I  mention  this,  because  there  is  sometimes 
a  regret  expressed  that  we  have  not  kept  our  language 
more  free  from  the  admixture  of  Latin,  a  suggestion 
made  that  we  should  even  now  endeavor  to  keep  under 
the  Latin  element  of  it,  and  remove  it  as  far  as  possi- 
ble out  of  sight.  I  remember  Lord  Brougham  urging 
upon  the  students  at  Glasgow  as  a  help  to  writing 
good  English,  that  they  should  seek  as  far  as  possible 

*  Works,  vol.  iv.,  p.  202. 

O* 


34  ENGLISH   A   COMPOSITE  LANGUAGE. 

to  rid  their  diction  of  long-tailed  words  in  '  osity'  and 
'ation.'  He  plainly  intended  to  indicate  by  this 
phrase  all  learned  Latin  words,  or  words  derived  from 
the  Latin.  This  exhortation  is  not  altogether  to  be 
set  aside ;  no  doubt  there  were  writers  of  a  former 
age,  Samuel  Johnson  in  the  last  century,  Cudworth 
and  Sir  Thomas  Browne  in  the  century  preceding, 
who  gave  undue  preponderance  to  the  learned,  or 
Latin,  portion  in  our  language  ;  and  very  much  of  its 
charm,  of  its  homely  strength  and  beauty,  of  its  most 
popular  and  truest  idioms,  would  have  perished  from 
it  had  they  succeeded  in  persuading  others  to  write 
as  they  had  written. 

But  at  the  same  time  we  could  almost  as  ill  do 
without  this  side  of  the  language  as  the  other.  It 
represents  and  supplies  needs  not  less  real  than  the 
other  does.  Philosophy  and  science  and  the  arts  of 
a  high  civilization  find  their  utterance  in  the  Latin 
words  of  our  language,  or,  if  not  in  the  Latin,  in  the 
Greek,  which  for  present  purposes  may  be  grouped 
with  them.  How  should  they  have  found  it  in  the 
other  branch  of  our  language,  among  a  people  who 
had  never  cultivated  any  of  these  ?  And  while  it  is 
undoubtedly  of  importance  to  keep  this  within  due 
bounds,  and,  cceteris  paribus^  it  will  in  general  be 
advisable,  when  a  Latin  and  a  Saxon  word  offer  them- 
selves to  our  choice,  to  use  the  Saxon  rather  than  the 
other,  to  speak  of  '  happiness'  rather  than  '  felicity,' 
*  almighty'  rather  than  '  omnipotent,'  a  '  forerunner' 
rather  than  a  '  precursor,'  still  these  latter  must  be 
regarded  as  much  denizens  in  the  language  as  the 
former,  no  alien  interlopers,  but  possessing  the  rights 
of  citizenship  as  fully  as  the  most  Saxon  word  of  then? 


QUOTATION  FROM  DE  QUINCEY.         35 

all.  One  part  of  the  language  is  not  to  be  cultivated 
at  the  expense  of  the  other ;  the  Saxon  at  the  cost  of 
the  Latin,  as  little  as  the  Latin  at  the  cost  of  the 
Saxon.  "  Both  are  indispensable  ;  and  speaking  gen- 
erally without  stopping  to  distinguish  as  to  subject, 
both  are  equally  indispensable.  Pathos,  in  situations 
which  are  homely,  or  at  all  connected  with  domestic 
affections,  naturally  moves  by  Saxon  words.  Lyrical 
emotion  of  every  kind,  which  (to  merit  the  name  of 
lyrical)  must  be  in  the  state  of  flux  and  reflux,  or, 
generally,  of  agitation,  also  requires  the  Saxon  ele- 
ment of  our  language.  And  why  ?  Because  the  Sax- 
on is  the  aboriginal  element ;  the  basis  and  not  the 
superstructure :  consequently  it  comprehends  all  the 
ideas  which  are  natural  to  the  heart  of  man  and  to 
the  elementary  situations  of  life.  And  although  the 
Latin  often  furnishes  us  with  duplicates  of  these  ideas, 
yet  the  Saxon,  or  monosyllabic  part,  has  the  advan- 
tage of  precedency  in  our  use  and  knowledge ;  for  it 
is  the  language  of  the  nursery  whether  for  rich  or 
poor,  in  which  great  philological  academy  no  tolera 
tion  is  given  to  words  in  '  osity'  or  '  ation.'  There 
is,  therefore,  a  great  advantage,  as  regards  the  conse- 
cration to  our  feelings,  settled  by  usage  and  custom 
upon  the  Saxon  strands  in  the  mixed  yarn  of  our  na- 
tive tongue.  And  universally,  this  may  be  remarked 
— that  wherever  the  passion  of  a  poem  is  of  that  sort 
which  uses^  presumes^  or  postulates  the  ideas,  without 
seeking  to  extend  them,  Saxon  will  be  the  '  cocoon' 
(to  speak  by  the  language  applied  to  silk-worms), 
which  the  poem  spins  for  itself.  But  on  the  other 
liand,  where* the  motion  of  the  feeling  is  by  and 
through  the  ideas,  where  (as  in  religious  or  meditative 


36  ENGLISH   A    COMPOSITE  LANGUAGE. 

poetry  —  Young's,  for  instance,  or  Cowper's)  the 
pathos  creeps  and  kindles  underneath  the  very  tissues 
of  the  thinking,  there  the  Latin  will  predominate  ;  and 
so  much  so  that,  while  the  flesh,  the  blood,  and  the 
muscle,  will  be  often  almost  exclusively  Latin,  the 
articulations  only,  or  hinges  of  connection,  will  be 
Anglo-Saxon." 

These  words  which  I  have  just  quoted  are  De 
Quincey's  —  whom  I  must  needs  esteem  the  greatest 
living  master  of  our  English  tongue.  And  on  the 
same  matter  Sir  Francis  Palgrave  has  expressed  him- 
self thus :  "  Upon  the  languages  of  Teutonic  origin 
the  Latin  has  exercised  great  influence,  but  most  en- 
ergetically on  our  own.  The  very  early  admixture 
of  the  Langue  (T  Oil,  the  never-interrupted  employ- 
ment of  the  French  as  the  language  of  education,  and 
the  nomenclature  created  by  the  scientific  and  literary 
cultivation  of  advancing  and  civilized  society,  have 
Romanized  our  speech ;  the  warp  may  be  Anglo-Saxon, 
but  the  woof  is  Roman  as  well  as  the  embroidery,  and 
these  foreign  materials  have  so  entered  into  the  tex- 
ture, that  were  they  plucked  out,  the  web  would  be 
torn  to  rags,  unravelled  and  destroyed."* 

I  do  not  know  where  we  could  find  a  happier  ex- 
ample of  the.  preservation  of  the  golden  mean  in  this 
matter  than  in  our  authorized  version  of  the  Bible. 
One  of  the  chief  among  the  minor  and  secondary  bles- 
sings which  that  version  has  conferred  on  the  nation 
or  nations  drawing  spiritual  life  from  it  —  a  blessing 
not  small  in  itself,  but  only  small  by  comparison  with 
the  infinitely  higher  blessings  whereof  it  is  the  vehicle 
to  them  —  is  the  happy  wisdom,  the  instinctive  tact, 

*  History  of  Normandij  and  England,  vol.  i.,  p.  78- 


TME   ENGLISH    BIBLE.  37 

with  which  iis  authors  have  steered  between  any  futile 
mischievous  attempt  to  ignore,  the  full  rights  of  the 
Latin  part  of  the  language  on  the  one  side,  and  on 
the  other,  any  burdening  of  their  version  with  such  a 
multitude  of  learned  Latin  terras  as  should  cause  it  to 
forfeit  its  homely  character,  and  shut  up  great  por- 
tions of  it  from  the  understanding  of  plain  and  un- 
learned men.  There  is  a  remarkable  confession  to 
this  effect,  to  the  wisdom,  in  fact,  which  guided  them 
from  above,  to  the  providence  tliat  overruled  their 
work,  an  honorable  acknowledgment  of  the  immense 
superiority  in  this  respect  of  our  English  version  over 
the  Romish,  made  by  one  now  unhappily  familiar  with 
the  latter,  as  once  he  was  with  our  own.  One  of 
those  who  has  abandoned  the  communion  of  the  Eng- 
lish church  has  expressed  himself  in  deeply-touching 
tones  of  lamentation  over  all,  which  in  forsaking  our 
translation,  he  feels  himself  to  have  foregone  and  lost. 
These  are  his  words :  "  Who  will  not  say  that  the 
uncommon  beauty  and  marvellous  English  of  the  prot- 
estant  bible  is  not  one  of  the  great  strongholds  of 
heresy  in  this  country  ?  It  lives  on  the  ear,  like  a 
music  tliat  can  never  be  forgotten,  like  the  sound  of 
church-bells,  which  the  convert  hardly  knows  how  he 
can  forego.  Its  felicities  often  seem  to  be  almost 
things  rather  than  mere  words.  It  is  part  of  the 
national  mind,  and  the  anchor  of  national  seriousness. 
....  The  memory  of  the  dead  passes  into  it.  The 
potent  traditions  of  childhood  are  stereotyped  in  its 
verses.  The  power  of  all  the  griefs  and  trials  of  a 
man  is  hidden  beneath  its  words.  It  is  the  repre- 
sentative of  his  best  moments,  and  all  that  there  has 
been  about  him  of  soft  and  gentle  and  pure  and  peni- 


38  ENGLISH   A    COMPOSITE  LANGUAGE. 

tent  and  good  speaks  to  liim  for  ever  out  of  his  English 

bible It  is  his  sacred  thing,  which  doubt  has 

never  dimmed,  and  controversy  never  soiled.  In  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land  there  is  not  a  protes- 
tant  with  one  spark  of  religiousness  about  him,  whose 
spiritual  biography  is  not  in  his  Saxon  bible."* 

Such  are  his  touching  words  ;  and  certainly  one  has 
only  to  compare  this  version  of  ours  with  the  Rhemish, 
and  the  far  greater  excellence  of  our  own  reveals  it- 
self at  once.  I  am  not  speaking  now  in  respect  of 
superior  accuracy  of  scholarship ;  nor  yet  of  the  ab- 
sence of  by-ends,  of  all  turning  and  twisting  of  the 
translation  to  support  certain  doctrines ;  nor  yet  do  I 
allude  to  the  fact  that  one  translation  is  from  the  ori- 
ginal Greek,  the  other  only  from  the  Latin,  and  thus 
the  translation  of  a  translation,  often  reproducing  the 
mistakes  of  that  translation ;  but,  putting  aside  all 
considerations  such  as  these,  I  would  now  speak  only 
of  the  superiority  of  the  diction  in  which  the  meaning, 
be  it  correct  or  incorrect,  is  conveyed  to  English  read- 
ers. I  open  the  Rhemish  version  at  Galatians,  v.  19, 
where  the  long  list  of  the  "  works  of  the  flesh,"  and 
"fruit  of  the  Spirit,"  is  given.  But  what  could  a 
mere  English  reader  make  of  words  such  as  these — 
*  impudicity,'  '  ebrieties,'  '  comessations,'  '  longanimi- 
ty,' all  which  occur  in  that  passage  ?  while  our  ver- 
sion for  '  ebrieties'  has  '  drunkenness,'  for  *  comessa- 
tions'  has  '  revellings,'  and  so  also  for  '  longanimity' 
'  longsufFering.'  Or  set  over  against  one  another  such 
phrases  as  these — in  the  Rhemish,  '  the  exemplars  of 
the  celestials'  (Heb.  ix.  23),  but  in  ours,  'the  pat- 
terns of  things  in  the  heavens.'     Or  suppose  if,  instead 

*  Dublin  Review,  June,  1853. 


THE  RHEMISH   BIBLE.  39 

of  the  words  which  we  read  at  Heb.  xiii.  16,  namely, 
"  To  do  good  and  to  communicate  forget  not ;  for  with 
such  sacrifices  God  is  well  pleased,"  we  read  as  fol- 
lows, which  are  the  words  of  the  Rhemish :  "•  Benefi- 
cence and  communication  do  not  forget ;  for  with  such 
hosts  God  is  promerited" !  Who  does  not  feel  that 
if  our  version  had  arrayed  itself  in  such  diction  as 
this,  had  been  composed  in  such  Latin-English  as  this, 
our  loss  would  have  been  great  and  enduring — one 
which  would  have  searched  into  the  whole  religious 
life  of  our  people,  and  been  felt  in  the  very  depths  of 
the  national  mind  ? 

There  was  indeed  something  still  deeper  than  love 
of  sound  and  genuine  English  at  work  in  our  transla- 
tors, whether  they  were  conscious  of  it  or  not,  which 
hindered  them  from  sending  the  Scriptures  to  their 
fellow-countrymen  dressed  out  in  a  semi-Latin  garb. 
The  Reformation,  which  they  were  in  this  translation 
so  mightily  strengthening  and  confirming,  was  just  a 
throwing  ofif,  on  the  part  of  the  Teutonic  nations,  of 
that  everlasting  pupilage  in  which  Rome  would  have 
held  them ;  an  assertion  at  length  that  they  were 
come  to  full  age,  and  that  not  through  her,  but  di- 
rectly through  Christ,  they  would  address  themselves 
unto  God.  The  use  of  the  Latin  language  as  the  lan- 
guage of  worship,  as  the  language  in  which  the  Scrip- 
tures might  alone  be  read,  had  been  the  great  badge 
of  servitude,  even  as  the  Latin  habits  of  thought  and 
feeling  which  it  promoted  had  been  the  great  helps  to 
the  continuance  of  this  servitude,  through  long  ages. 
It  lay  deep  then  in  the  very  nature  of  their  cause  that 
the  reformers  should  develop  the  Saxon,  or  essentially 
national,  element  in  the  language ;  while  it  was  just 


40  ENGLISH   A    COMPOSITE  LANGUAGE. 

as  natural  that  the  Roman  catholic  translators,  if  they 
must  translate  the  Scriptures  into  English  at  all, 
should  yet  translate  them  into  such  English  as  should 
bear  the  nearest  possible  resemblance  to  the  Latin 
Yulgate,  which  Rome,  with  a  very  deep  wisdom  of 
this  world,  would  gladly  have  seen  as  the  only  one  in 
the  hands  of  the  faithful. 

Let  me  again,  however,  recur  to  the  fact  that  what 
our  reformers  did  in  this  matter,  they  did  without 
exaggeration ;  even  as  they  had  shown  the  same  wise 
moderation  in  still  higher  matters.  They  gave  to  the 
Latin  side  of  the  language  its  rights,  though  they 
would  not  suffer  it  to  encroach  upon  and  usurp  those 
of  the  Teutonic  part  of  the  language.  It  would  be 
difficult  not  to  believe,  even  if  all  outward  signs  said 
not  the  same  thing,  that  there  are  great  things  in 
store  for  the  one  language  of  Europe  which  is  thus 
the  connecting  link  between  the  North  and  the  South, 
between  the  languages  spoken  by  the  Teutonic  nations 
of  the  North  and  by  the  Romance  nations  of  the 
South ;  which  holds  on  to  both ;  which  partakes  of 
both ;  which  is  as  a  middle  term  between  both.  It 
has  been  often  thought  that  the  English  church,  being 
in  like  manner  double-fronted,  looking  on  the  one  side 
toward  Rome,  being  herself  truly  catholic,  looking  on 
the  other  toward  the  protestant  communions,  being 
herself  also  protesting  and  reformed,  may  yet  in  the 
providence  of  God  have  a  great  part  to  play  for  the 
reconciling  of  a  divided  Christendom.  And  if  this 
ever  should  be  so — if,  in  spite  of  our  sins  and  unwor- 
thiness,  so  blessed  a  task  should  be  in  store  for  her — 
it  will  not  be  a  small  help  and  assistance  thereunto, 
that  the  language  in  which  her  mediation  will  have  to 


JACOB   GRIMM   ON   ENGLISH.  41 

be  eflected  is  one  wherein  both  parties  may  claim 
their  own  ;  in  wliich  neither  will  feel  that  it  is  receiv- 
ing the  adjudication  of  a  stranger,  of  one  who  must 
be  an  alien  from  its  deeper  thonglits  and  habits,  be- 
cause an  alien  from  its  words,  but  a  language  in  which 
both  recognise  very  much  of  that  which  is  deepest  and 
most  precious  of  their  own. 

Nor  is  this  merit  which  I  have  just  claimed  for  our 
English  the  mere  dream  and  fancy  of  patriotic  vanity. 
The  scholar  who  in  our  days  is  most  profoundly  ac- 
quainted with  the  great  group  of  the  Gothic  languages 
in  Europe,  and  a  passionate  lover,  if  ever  there  was 
such,  of  his  native  German — I  mean  Jacob  Grimm — 
has  expressed  himself  very  nearly  to  the  same  effect, 
and  given  the  palm  over  all  to  our  English  in  words 
which  you  will  not  grudge  to  hear  quoted,  and  with 
which  1  shall  bring  this  lecture  to  a  close.  After  as- 
cribing to  our  language  "  a  veritable  power  of  expres- 
sion, such  as  perhaps  never  stood  at  the  command  of 
any  other  language  of  men,"  he  goes  on  to  say :  "  Its 
highly  spiritual  genius,  and  wonderfully  happy  devel- 
opment and  condition,  have  been  the  result  of  a  sur- 
prisingly intimate  union  of  the  two  noblest  languages 
in  modern  Europe,  the  Teutonic  and  the  Romance. 
It  is  well  known  in  what  relation  these  two  stand  to 
one  another  in  the  English  tongue  ;  the  former  supply- 
ing in  far  larger  proportion  the  material  groundwork, 
the  latter  the  spiritual  conceptions.  In  truth,  the 
English  language,  which  by  no  mere  accident  has  pro- 
duced and  upborne  the  greatest  and  most  predominant 
poet  of  modern  times,  as  distinguished  from  the  an- 
cient classical  poetry  (I  can,  of  course,  only  mean 
Shakespeare),  may  with  all  right  be  called  a  world- 


42  ENGLISH   A   COMPOSITE   LANGUAGE. 

language  ;  and,  like  the  English  people,  appears  des- 
tined hereafter  to  prevail  with  a  sway  more  extensive 
even  than  its  present  over  all  the  portions  of  the 
globe.*  For  in  wealth,  good  sense,  and  closeness  of 
structure,  no  other  of  the  languages  at  this  day  spo- 
ken deserves  to  be  compared  with  it — not  even  our 
German,  which  is  torn,  even  as  we  are  torn,  and  must 
first  rid  itself  of  many  defects,  before  it  can  enter 
boldly  into  the  lists,  as  a  competitor  with  the  Eng- 
lish."! 

*  A  little  more  than  two  centuries  ago,  a  poet,  himself  abundantly- 
deserving  the  title  of  "  well-languaged,"  which  a  contemporary  or  near 
successor  gave  him,  ventured  in  some  remarkable  lines  timidly  to  an- 
ticipate this.  Speaking  of  his  native  tongue,  which  he  himself  wrote 
with  such  vigor  and  purity,  though  wanting  in  the  fiery  impulses 
which  go  to  the  making  of  a  first-rate  poet,  Daniel  exclaims  ; — 

"  And  who,  in  time,  knows  whither  we  may  vent 
The  treasure  of  our  tongue,  to  what  strange  shores 
This  gain  of  our  best  glory  shall  be  sent. 
To  enrich  unknowing  nations  with  our  stores  1 
What  worlds  in  the  yet  unformed  Occident 
May  come  refined  with  the  accents  that  are  ours  ? 
Or  who  can  tell  for  what  great  work  in  hand 
The  greatness  of  our  style  is  now  ordained  ? 
What  powers  it  shall  bring  in,  what  spirits  command, 
What  thoughts  let  out,  what  humors  keep  restrained, 
What  mischief  it  may  powerfully  withstand. 
And  what  fair  ends  may  thereby  be  attained  V* 

*  Ueber  den  Ursprung  der  Sprache,  Berlin,  1852,  p.  50. 


LIVING   AND   DEAD  LANGUAGES.  48 


LECTURE   II. 

GAINS   OF  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

It  is  not  for  nothing  that  we  speak  of  some  lan- 
guages as  living,  of  others  as  dead.  These  epithets 
are  not  severally  mere  synonyms  for  '  spoken'  and 
*  unspoken,'  however  we  very  often  esteem  them  no 
more.  Some  languages  are  living,  or  alive,  in  quite 
a  different  and  in  a  much  higher  sense  than  this ; 
showing  themselves  to  be  so  by  many  infallible  proofs 
— by  motion,  growth,  acquisition,  loss,  progress,  and 
decay.  A  living  language  is  one  in  which  a  vital, 
formative  energy  is  still  at  work ;  a  dead  language  is 
one  in  which  this  has  ceased.  A  living  language  is 
one  which  is  in  the  course  of  actual  evolution ;  which 
is  appropriating  and  assimilating  to  itself  what  it  any- 
where finds  congenial  to  its  own  life,  multiplying  its 
resources,  increasing  its  wealth ;  which  at  the  same 
time  is  casting  off  useless  and  cumbersome  forms,  dis- 
missing from  its  vocabulary  words  of  which  it  finds 
no  use,  rejecting  from  itself  by  a  reactive  energy  the 
foreign  and  heterogeneous  which  may  for  a  while  have 
been  forced  upon  it.  I  would  not  assert  that  in  the 
process  of  all  this  it  does  not  make  mistakes.  In  the 
desire  to  simplify  it  may  let  go  distinctions  which 
were  not  useless,  and  which  it  would  have  been  better 
to  retain ;  its  acquisitions  are  not  all  gains ;  it  some- 


44  GAINS   OF  THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

times  rejects  words  as  worthless,  or  suffers  words  to 
die  out,  which  were  most  worthy  to  have  lived.  So 
far  as  it  does  this,  its  life  is  an  unhealthy  one  ;  there 
are  here  signs  of  decay  and  death  approaching ;  but 
still  it  lives,  and  even  these  misgrowths  and  malfor- 
mations, these  errors,  are  themselves  the  utterances 
and  evidences  of  life.  A  dead  language  —  the  Latin, 
for  instance  —  is  as  incapable  of  losing  as  it  is  of  gain- 
ing. We  may  know  it  better ;  but  it  can  never  be 
more  nor  less  in  itself  than  it  has  been  for  hundreds 
of  years. 

Our  own  is,  of  course,  a  living  language  still ;  it  is 
therefore  gaining  and  losing  ;  it  is  a  tree  in  which  the 
vital  sap  is  yet  working,  ascending  from  its  roots  into 
its  branches  ;  and,  as  this  works,  new  leaves  are  being 
put  forth  by  it,  old  are  dropping  away  and  dying.  I 
propose  for  the. subject  of  my  present  lecture  to  con- 
sider some  of  the  evidences  of  this  its  present  life. 
As  I  took  for  the  subject  of  my  first  lecture  the  actual 
proportions  in  which  the  several  elements  of  our  com- 
posite English  are  now  found  in  it,  so  I  shall  take,  for 
the  subject  of  this,  the  sources  from  which  the  English 
language  has  enriched  its  vocabulary,  the  periods  at 
which  it  has  made  its  chief  additions,  the  character 
of  the  additions  which  at  different  periods  it  has  made, 
and  the  motives  which  induced  it  to  seek  them. 

I  had  occasion  to  mention  in  that  lecture,  and  in- 
deed I  dwelt  with  some  emphasis  on  the  fact,  that  the 
core,  the  radical  constitution  of  our  language,  is 
Anglo-Saxon ;  so  that,  composite  or  mingled  as  it 
must  freely  be  allowed  to  be,  it  is  only  such  in  respect 
of  its  words,  not  in  respect  of  its  construction,  inflex- 
ions, or  generally  its  grammatical  forms.     These  are 


THE   NORMAN   CONQUEST.  46 

all  of  one  piece ;  and  whatever  of  new  has  come  in 
has  been  compelled  to  conform  itself  to  these.  The 
framework  is  English ;  only  a  part  of  the  filling  in  is 
otherwise  ;  and  of  this  filling  in,  of  these  its  compara- 
tively more  recent  accessions,  I  now  propose  to  speak. 

The  first  great  augmentation  by  foreign  words  of 
our  Saxon  vocabulary  was  a  consequence,  although 
not  an  immediate  one,  of  the  battle  of  Hastings,  and 
of  the  Norman  domination  which  Duke  William's  vic- 
tory established  in  our  land.  And  here  let  me  say 
in  respect  of  that  victory,  in  contradiction  to  the  sen- 
timental regrets  of  Thierry  and  others,  and  with  the 
fullest  acknowledgment  of  the  immediate  miseries 
which  it  entailed  on  the  Saxon  race,  that  it  was  re- 
ally the  making  of  England ;  a  judgment,  it  is  true, 
but  a  judgment  and  mercy  in  one.  God  never  showed 
more  plainly  that  he  had  great  things  in  store  for  the 
people  who  should  occupy  this  English  soil,  than  when 
he  brought  hither  that  aspiring  Norman  race.  At  the 
same  time,  the  actual  interpenetration  of  our  Anglo- 
Saxon  with  any  large  amount  of  French  words  did 
not  find  place  till  very  considerably  later  than  this 
event,  however  it  was  a  consequence  of  it.  Some 
French  words  we  find  very  soon  after ;  but  in  the 
main  the  two  streams  of  language  continued  for  a  long 
while  separate  and  apart,  even  as  the  two  nations 
remained  aloof,  a  conquering  and  a  conquered,  and 
neither  forgetting  the  fact. 

Time,  however,  softened  the  mutual  antipathies. 
The  Norman,  after  a  while  shut  out  from  France,  be- 
gan more  and  more  to  feel  that  England  was  his  home 
and  sphere.  The  Saxon,  recovering  little  by  little 
from  the  extreme  depression  which  had  ensued  on  his 


46       GAINS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

defeat,*  became  every  day  a  more  important  element 
of  the  new  English  nation  which  was  gradually  form- 
ing from  the  coalition  of  the  two  races.  His  language 
partook  of  his  elevation.  It  was  no  longer  the  badge 
of  inferiority.  French  was  no  longer  the  only  lan- 
guage in  which  a  gentleman  could  speak,  or  a  poet 
sing.  At  the  same  time,  the  Saxon,  now  passing  into 
the  English  language,  required  a  vast  addition  to  its 
vocabulary,  if  it  were  to  serve  all  the  needs  of  those 
who  were  willing  to  employ  it  now.  How  much  was 
there  of  high  culture,  how  many  of  the  arts  of  life,  of 
its  refined  pleasures,  which  had  been  strange  to  Saxon 
men,  and  had  therefore  found  no  utterance  in  Saxon 
words !  All  this  it  was  sought  to  supply  from  the 
French. 

We  shall  not  err,  1  think,  if  we  assume  the  great 
period  of  the  incoming  of  French  words  into  the  Eng- 
lish language  to  have  been  when  the  Norman  nobility 

*  We  may  trace,  I  think,  a  permanent  record  of  this  depression  in  the 
fact  that  a  vast  number  of  Teutonic  words,  which  have  a  noble  sense 
in  the  kindred  language  of  Germany,  and  evidently  had  once  such  in 
the  Anglo-Saxon,  have  forfeited  this  in  whole  or  in  part,  have  been 
contented  to  take  a  lower  place ;  M'hile,  in  most  instances,  a  word  of 
the  Latin  moiety  of  the  language  has  assumed  the  place  which  they 
have  vacated.  Thus,  'tapfer'  is  valiant,  courageous,  but  '  dapper'  is 
only  spruce  or  smart ;  *  prachtig/  which  means  proud,  magnificent, 
has  dwindled  into  'pretty;'  'taufen,'  being  to  baptize,  only  appears 
with  us  as  *  to  dip ;'  '  weinen'  is  honest  weeping  in  German,  it  is  only 
'  whining'  with  us  ;  *  dach'  is  any  roof  whatever,  but  *  thatch'  is  only 
a  straw-roof  for  us ;  '  baum'  is  a  living  tree,  while  *  beam'  is  only  a 
piece  of  dead  timber  ;  in  'horn-beam,'  one  of  our  trees,  'beam'  still 
keeps  its  earlier  use.  'Haut'  is  skin,  but  its  English  representative 
is  'hide'  —  skin,  that  is,  of  a  beast;  'stuhl,'  a  seat  or  chair,  is  de- 
graded into  'stool ;'  while  'graben'  is  no  longer  to  dig,  but  '  to  grub  ;' 
again,  in''rasch'  there  is  nothing  of  the  sense  of  too  great  haste,  of 
temerity,  which  in  our  '  rash'  there  is.  And  this  list  might  be  very 
largely  increased. 


INCOMIMG   OP   FRENCH.  47 

were  exchanging  their  own  language  for  the  English  ; 
and  I  should  be  disposed  with  Tyrwhitt  to  believe 
that  there  is  much  exaggeration  in  attributing  the 
large  influx  of  these  into  English  to  one  man's  influ- 
ence—  namely,  to  Chaucer's.*  Doubtless,  he  did 
much ;  he  fell  in  wdth  and  furthered  a  tendency  which 
already  prevailed.  But  to  suppose  that  the  greater 
number  of  French  vocables  which  he  employed  in  his 
poems  had  never  been  employed  before,  had  been 
hitherto  unfamiliar  to  English  ears,  is  to  suppose  that 
his  poems  must  have  presented  to  his  contemporaries 
an  absurd  patchwork  of  two  languages,  and  leaves  it 
impossible  to  explain  how  he  should  at  once  have 
become  the  popular  poet  of  our  nation. 

That  Chaucer  largely  developed  the  language  in 
this  direction  is  indeed  plain.  We  have  only  to  com- 
pare his  English  with  that  of  another  great  master  of 
the  tongue,  his  contemporary  Wiclif,  to  perceive  how 
much  more  his  diction  is  saturated  with  French  words 
than  is  that  of  the  reformer.  We  may  note,  too,  that 
a  great  many  which  he  and  others  employed,  and  as  it 
were  proposed  for  admission,  were  not  finally  allowed 
and  received  ;  so  that  no  doubt  they  went  beyond  the 
needs  of  the  language,  and  were  here  in  excess.f     At 

*  Thus  Alexander  Gil,  head-master  of  St.  Paul's  school,  in  his 
book,  Logonomia  Anglica,  1621,  preface:  "Hue  usque  peregrinae 
voces  in  lingua  Anglica  inauditae.  Tandem  circa  annum  1400  Gal- 
fridus  Chaucerus,  infausto  omme,  vocabulis  Gallicis  et  Latinis  poesin 
suam  famosam  reddidit."  The  whole  passage,  which  is  too  long  to 
quote,  as  indeed  the  whole  book,  is  curious.  Gil  was  an  earnest 
advocate  of  phonetic  spelling,  and  has  adopted  it  in  all  his  English 
quotations  in  this  book. 

t  We  may  observe  exactly  the  same  in  Plautus ;  a  multitude  of 
Greek  words  are  used  by  him,  which  the  Latin  language  did  not  want, 
and  therefore  refused  to  take  up.     Thus,  'clepta,'  'zaniia*  (^ij/zta). 


48  GAINS   OF   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

the  same  time,  this  can  be  regarded  as  no  condemna- 
tion of  their  attempt.  It  was  only  by  actual  experi- 
ence that  it  could  be  proved  whether  the  language 
wanted  those  words  or  not,  whether  it  could  absorb 
them  into  itself,  and  assimilate  them  with  all  that  it 
already  was  and  had ;  or  did  not  require,  and  would 
therefore  in  due  time  reject  and  put  them  away.  And 
what  happened  then  will  happen  in  every  attempt  to 
transplant  on  a  large  scale  the  words  of  one  language 
into  another.  Some  will  take  root ;  others  will  not, 
but  after  a  longer  or  briefer  period  will  wither  and 
die.  Thus,  I  observe  in  Chaucer  such  French  words 
as  these:  '  misericorde,'  '  malure'  (malheur),  '  peni- 
ble,'  '  tas,'  '  gipon,'  '  pierrie'  (precious  stones)  ;  none 
of  which  have  been  permanently  incorporated  in  our 
tongue.  As  little  has  '  creansur,'  which  Wiclif  (2  Kin. 
iv.  1)  employs  for  creditor,  held  its  place.  For  a  long 
time  '  roy'  struggled  hard  for  a  place  in  the  language  : 
it  quite  obtained  one  in  Scotch.  It  is  curious  to  mark 
some  of  these  French  adoptions  keeping  their  ground 
to  a  comparatively  late  day,  and  yet  finally  extruded : 
seeming  to  have  taken  firm  root,  they  have  yet  with- 
ered away  in  the  end.  Thus  has  it  been,  for  example, 
with  '  egal'  (Futtenham)  ;  with  '  ouvert'  (Holland)  ; 
with  '  rivage,'  'jouissance,'  *  noblesse,'  '  accoil'  (ac- 
cueillir),  '  sell'  (=  saddle),  all  occurring  in  Spenser ; 
with  '  to  serr'  (serrer),  with  '  vive,'  used  both  by  Ba- 

'danista,'  *harpagare,'  *  apolactizare/  'naucleras,'  'strategus/  *mo- 
rologus,'  *phylaca,'  'malacus/  'sycophantia/  'euscheme'  {slcx,fii.iMs), 
'dulice*  {oov'SiKuii),  (so  'scymnus'  by  Lucretius),  none  of  which,  I  be- 
lieve, are  employed  except  by  him  ;  ^mastigias'  and  'techna'  appear 
also  in  Terence.  Yet  only  experience  could  show  that  they  were 
superfluous ;  and  at  the  epoch  of  Latin  literature  in  which  Plautus 
lived,  it  was  well  done  to  put  them  on  triaL 


FRENCH    WORDS   REJECTED.  49 

con ;  and  so  with  '  espcrancc,'  '  orgillous'  (orgueil- 
leiix),  '  rondeur,'  '  scrimer'  (^=  fencer),  all  in  Shake- 
speare ;  with  *  amort'  (this  also  in  Shakespeare),  and 
'avie'  (Holland).  '  Maugre,'  '  congie,'  'mot,'  *  de- 
voir,' '  sans,'  were  English  once ;  when  we  employ 
them  now,  it  is  with  the  sense  that  we  are  using  for- 
eign words.  The  same  is  true  of '  dulce,' '  aigredoulce' 
(=  soursweet),  of  '  mur'  for  wall,  of  '  baine'  for  bath, 
of  the  verb  '  to  cass'  (all  in  Holland),  of  '  volupty' 
(Sir  Thomas  Elyot),  '  volunty'  (Evelyn),  '  medisance' 
(Montagu),  '  petit'  (South),  '  eloign'  (Hacket),  this 
last  surviving  still  in  the  beautiful  word,  now  indeed 
only  provincial,  though  formerly  employed  by  Chau- 
cer, '  ellinge,'  that  is,  separated  from  friends,  and  thus 
lonely,  melancholy.* 

We  have  seen  when  the  great  influx  of  French 
words  took  place — that  is,  from  the  time  of  the  Con- 
quest, although  scantily  and  feebly  at  the  first,  to  that 
of  Chaucer.  But  with  hira  our  literature  and  lan- 
guage had  made  a  burst,  which  they  were  not  able  to 
maintain.  He  has  by  Warton  been  well  compared  to 
some  warm,  bright  day  in  the  very  early  spring,  which 
seems  to  say  that  the  winter  is  over  and  gone.  But 
its  promise  is  deceitful :  the  full  bursting  and  blossom- 
ing of  the  spring-time  are  yet  far  off.  That  struggle 
with  France  which  began  so  gloriously,  but  ended  so 
disastrously,  even  with  the  loss  of  our  whole  ill-won 
dominion  there  ;  the  savagery  of  our  wars  of  the  Roses 
—  wars  which  were  a  legacy  bequeathed  to  us  by  that 

*  Let  me  here  observe,  once  for  all,  that  in  adding  the  name  of  an 
author,  which  I  shall  often  do,  to  a  word,  I  do  not  mean  to  affirm  the 
word  in  any  way  peculiar  to  him  —  although  in  some  cases  it  may  be 
so  —  but  only  to  give  one  authority  for  its  use. 

3 


50  GAINS   OF  THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

unrighteous  conquest — leave  a  great  blank  in  our  lit- 
erary history,  nearly  a  century  during  which  very  little 
was  done  for  the  cultivation  of  our  native  tongue, 
during  which  it  could  have  made  few  important  ac- 
cessions to  its  wealth. 

The  period,  however,  is  notable  as  being  that  du- 
ring which  for  the  first  time  we  received  a  large  ac- 
cession of  Latin  words.  There  was,  indeed,  already 
a  small  settlement  of  these,  for  the  roost  part  ecclesi- 
astical, which  had  long  since  found  their  home  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  itself,  and  had  been  entirely 
incorporated  into  it.  The  fact  that  we  had  received 
our  Christianity  from  Rome,  and  that  Latin  was  the 
constant  language  of  the  church,  sufficiently  explains 
the  incoming  of  these.  Such  were  '  monk,'  *  bishop' 
(I  put  them  in  their  present  shapes,  and  do  not  con- 
cern myself  whether  they  were  originally  Greek  or 
not — they  reached  us  as  Latin), '  provost,'  '  minster,' 
*  cloister,'  ^  candle,'  '  psalter,'  ^  mass  ;'  and  the  names 
of  certain  foreign  animals,  as  '  camel,'  or  plants  or 
other  productions,  as  '  pepper,'  '  fig ;'  which  are  all, 
with  slightly  different  orthography,  Anglo-Saxon  words. 
These,  however,  were  entirely  exceptional,  and  stood 
to  the  main  body  of  the  language,  not  as  the  Romance 
element  of  it  does  now  to  the  G-othic,  one  power  over 
against  another,  but  as  the  Spanish,  or  Italian,  or 
Arabic  words  in  it  now  stand  to  the  whole  present 
body  of  the  language  —  and  could  not  be  affirmed  to 
affect  it  more. 

So  soon,  however,  as  French  words  were  imported 
largely,  as  I  have  just  observed,  into  the  language, 
and  were  found  to  coalesce  kindly  with  the  native 
growths,  this  very  speedily  suggested,  as  indeed  it 


PEDANTIC  LATINTSMS.  51 

alone  rendered  possible,  the  going  straight  to  the 
Latin,  and  drawing  directly  from  it ;  and  thus,  in  the 
hundred  years  which  followed  Chaucer, <a  large  amount 
of  Latin  found  its  way,  if  not  into  our  speech,  yet  at 
all  events  into  our  books  —  words  which  were  not 
brought  through  the  French,  for  they  are  not,  and 
have  not  at  any  time  been,  French ;  but  yet  words 
which  would  never  have  been  introduced  into  Eng- 
lish, if  their  way  had  not  been  prepared  —  if  the 
French,  already  domesticated  among  us,  had  not 
bridged  over,  as  it  were,  the  gulf  that  would  have 
otherwise  been  too  wide  between  them  and  the  Saxon 
vocables  of  our  tongue. 

In  this  period,  a  period  of  great  depression  of  the 
national  spirit,  we  may  trace  the  attempt  at  a  pedantic 
latinization  of  English  quite  as  clearly  at  work  as  at 
later  periods,  subsequent  to  the  revival  of  learning. 
It  was  now  that  a  crop  of  such  words  as  '  facundious,' 
'  tenebrous,'  •  solacious,' '  pulcritude,' '  consuetude'  (all 
these  occur  in  Hawes),  as  '  spelunc,'  'jument,'  'irre- 
ligiosity,'  long  since  rejected  by  the  language,  sprung 
up ;  while  other  words,  good  in  themselves,  and  which 
have  been  since  allowed,  were  yet  employed  in  num- 
bers quite  out  of  proportion  with  the  Saxon  vocables 
with  which  they  were  mingled,  and  which  were  alto- 
gether overtopped  and  overshadowed  by  them.  Chau- 
cer's hearty  English  feeling,  his  thorough  sympathy 
with  the  people ;  the  fact  that,  scholar  as  he  was,  he 
was  yet  the  poet  not  of  books  but  of  life,  and  drew 
his  best  inspiration  from  life — all  this  had  kept  him, 
in  the  main,  clear  of  this  fault.  But  in  others  it  is 
very  manifest.  Thus,  I  must  esteem  the  diction  of 
Lydgate,  Hawes,  and  tlie  other  versifiers  who  filled 


52  GAINS   OF  THE   ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

up  the  period  between  Chaucer  and  Surrey,  in  this 
respect  a  great  going  back  from  Chaucer's  English ; 
being  all  stuck  over  with  long  and  often  ill-selected 
Latin  words.  The  worst  offenders  in  this  line,  as 
Campbell  himself  admits,  were  the  Scotch  poets  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  "  The  prevailing  fault,"  he  says, 
"  of  English  diction,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  is  redun- 
dant ornament,  and  an  affectation  of  anglicizing  Latin 
words.  In  this  pedantry  and  use  of  '  aureate  terms' 
the  Scottish  versifiers  went  even  beyond  their  breth- 
ren of  the  south When  they  meant  to  be  elo- 
quent, they  tore  up  words  from  the  Latin,  which  never 
took  root  in  the  language ;  like  children  making  a 
mock  garden  with  flowers  and  branches  stuck  in  the 
ground,  which  speedily  wither."* 

To  few  indeed  is  the  wisdom  and  discretion  given, 
certainly  it  was  given  to  none  of  those,  to  bear  them- 
selves in  this  hazardous  enterprise  according  to  the 
rules  laid  down  in  the  following  remarkable  passage ; 
Dryden  is  in  it  declaring  the  motives  that  induced  him 
to  seek  for  foreign  words,  and  the  considerations  by 
which  he  was  guided  in  their  selection  :  "  If  sounding 
words  are  not  of  our  growth  and  manufacture,  who 
shall  hinder  me  to  import  them  from  a  foreign  coun- 
try ?  I  carry  not  out  the  treasure  of  the  nation  which 
is  never  to  return,  but  what  I  bring  from  Italy  I  spend 
in  England.  Here  it  remains  and  here  it  circulates, 
for,  if  the  coin  be  good,  it  will  pass  from  one  hand  to 
another.  I  trade  both  with  the  living  and  the  dead, 
for  the  enrichment  of  our  native  language.  We  have 
enough  in  England  to  supply  our  necessity,  but  if  we 
will  have  things  of  magnificence  and  splendor,  we 

*  Essay  on  English  Poetry,  p.  93. 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REFORMATION.       53 

must  get  them  by  commerce.  Poetry  requires  adorn- 
ment, and  that  is  not  to  be  had  from  our  old  Teuton 
monosyllables ;  therefore,  if  I  find  any  elegant  word 
in  a  classic  author,  I  propose  it  to  be  naturalized  by 
using  it  myself;  and  if  the  public  approves  of  it,  the 
bill  passes.  But  every  man  can  not  distinguish 
betwixt  pedantry  and  poetry  :  every  man,  therefore,  is 
not  lit  to  innovate.  Upon  the  whole  matter  a  poet 
must  first  be  certain  that  the  word  he  would  introduce 
is  beautiful  in  the  Latin ;  and  is  to  consider,  in  the 
next  place,  whether  it  will  agree  with  the  English 
idiom :  after  this,  he  ought  to  take  the  opinion  of 
judicious  friends,  such  as  are  learned  in  both  lan- 
guages ;  and  lastly,  since  no  man  is  infallible,  let  him 
use  this  license  very  sparingly  ;  for  if  too  many  foreign 
words  are  poured  in  upon  us,  it  looks  as  if  they  were 
designed  not  to  assist  the  natives,  but  to  conquer 
them."* 

But  this  tendency  to  latinize  our  speech  was  likely 
to  receive,  and  actually  did  receive,  a  new  impulse 
from  the  revival  of  learning,  and  the  familiar  re- 
acquaintance  with  the  great  masterpieces  of  ancient 
literature  which  went  along  with  this.  Happily  there 
accompanied,  or  at  least  followed  hard  on,  this  intel- 
lectual movement  another  far  deeper,  and  in  England 
essentially  national  movement ;  one  which  even  in- 
tellectually stirred  the  nation  to  far  deeper  depths, 
in  that  it  was  also  a  moral  one ;  I  mean  of  course  the 
Reformation.  It  was  only  among  the  Germanic  na- 
tions of  Europe,  as  has  often  been  remarked,  that  the 
Reformation  struck  lasting  roots  ;  it  found  its  strength 
therefore  in  the  Teutonic  element  of  the  national 

*  Dedication  of  the  Translation  of  the  ^-Eneid. 


64       GAINS  OP  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

character,  which  also  it  in  its  turn  further  strength- 
ened,  purified  and  called  out.  And  thus,  though  Latin 
came  in  upon  us  now  faster  than  ever,  and  in  a  certain 
measure  also  Greek,  yet  this  was  not  without  its  coun- 
terpoise, in  the  contemporaneous  unfolding  of  the  more 
fundamentally  popular  side  of  the  language.  Popular 
preaching  and  discussion,  the  necessity  of  dealing 
with  the  highest  matters  in  a  manner  intelligible  not 
to  scholars  only,  but  to  the  unlearned,  all  this  served 
to  evoke  the  native  resources  of  our  tongue ;  and  thus 
the  relative  proportion  between  the  one  part  of  the 
language  and  the  other  was  not  dangerously  disturbed, 
the  balance  was  not  destroyed ;  as  it  would  have  been, 
if  only  the  Humanists  had  been  at  work,  and  not  the 
Reformers  as  well. 

The  revival  of  learning,  which  found  place  some- 
what earlier  in  Italy,  where  it  had  its  birth,  than  with 
us,  extended  to  England,  and  was  operative  here, 
during  the  reigns  of  Henry  VHI.  and  his  immediate 
successors ;  in  other  words,  if  it  slightly  anticipated 
in  time,  it  afterward  ran  exactly  parallel  with,  the 
period  during  which  our  Reformation  was  working 
itself  out.  It  was  an  epoch  in  all  respects  of  immense 
mental  and  moral  activity,  and  such  are  always  times 
of  extensive  changes  and  enlargements  in  a  language. 
The  old  garment,  which  served  a  people's  needs  in 
the  time  past,  is  too  narrow  for  it  now  to  wrap  itself 
in  any  more.  "  Change  in  language  is  not,  as  in 
many  natural  products,  continuous ;  it  is  not  equable, 
but  eminently  by  fits  and  starts."  When  the  foun- 
dations of  the  national  mind  are  heaving  under  the 
power  of  some  new  truth,  greater  and  more  important 
changes  will  find  place  in  fifty  years  than  in  two  cen* 


DATE   OP   SOME   LATIN   WORDS.  65 

turies  of  calmer  or  more  stagnant  existence.  Thus 
the  activities  and  energies  which  the  Reformation  set 
a  stirring  among  us  here,  and  I  need  not  tell  you  that 
these  reached  far  beyond  the  domain  of  our  directly 
religious  life,  caused  mighty  alterations  in  the  English 
tongue.* 

For  example,  the  Reformation  had  its  scholarly, 
we  might  say,  its  scholastic,  as  well  as  its  popular, 
aspect.  Add  this  fact  to  the  fact  of  the  revived  in- 
terest in  classical  learning,  and  you  will  not  wonder 
that  a  stream  of  Latin,  now  larger  than  ever,  began 
to  flow  into  our  language.  Thus  Puttenham,  writing 
in  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign,f  gives  a  long  list  of  words 

*  We  have  a  remarkable  evidence  of  the  sense  which  at  this  time 
'scholars  had  of  the  rapidity  with  which  the  language  was  changing^ 
under  their  hands  in  some  lines  of  Waller.  Looking  back  at  what 
the  last  hundred  years  had  wrought  of  alteration  in  it,  and  assuming, 
as  was  not  much  to  be  wondered  at,  that  the  next  hundred  would  ef- 
fect as  much,  he  checked  with  misgivings  such  as  these  his  own  ex- 
pectation of  immortality : 

"  Who  can  hope  his  lines  should  long 
Last  in  a  daily  changing  tongue  ? 
While  they  are  new,  envy  prevails, 
And  as  that  dies,  our  language  fails. 

"  Poets  that  lasting  marble  seek. 
Must  carve  in  Latin  or  in  Greek  : 
We  write  in  sand ;  our  language  grows. 
And  like  the  tide  our  work  o'erflows." 
Such  were  his  misgivings  as  to  the  future,  assuming  that  the  rate  of 
change  would  continue  what  it  had  been.     How  little  they  have  been 
fulfilled,  every  one  knows.     In  actual  fact  two  centuries  which  have 
elapsed  since  he  wrote,  have  hardly  antiquated  a  word  or  a  phrase  in 
his  poems.    If  we  care  very  little  for  them  now,  this  is  to  be  explained 
by  quite  other  causes  —  by  the  absence  of  all  moral  earnestness  from 
them. 

t  In  his  Art  of  English  Poesy,  London,  1589,  republished  in  Hasle- 
wood's  Ancient  Critical  Essai/s  upon  English  Poets  and  Poesy,  London, 
1811    vol,  i.,  pp.  122,  123. 


6Q  GAINS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

which  he  states  to  have  been  of  quite  recent  introduc- 
tion into  the  language.  Some  of  them  are  Greek,  a 
few  French  and  Italian,  but  very  far  the  most  are 
Latin.  I  will  not  give  you  his  whole  catalogue,  but 
some  specimens  from  it ;  it  is  difficult  to  understand 
in  regard  of  some  of  these  how  the  language  should 
have  managed  to  do  without  them  so  long ;  '  method,' 
'methodical,' ' function,' ' numerous,' '  penetrate,' '  pen- 
etrable,' *  indignity,'  'savage,'  'scientific,'  'delinea- 
tion,' 'dimension'  —  all  which  he  notes  to  have  re- 
cently come  up;  so  too  'idiom,'  'significative,'  'com- 
pendious,' 'prolix,'  'figurative,'  'impression,'  'in- 
veigle,' 'metrical.'  All  these  he  adduces  with  praise  ; 
others  upon  which  he  bestows  equal  commendation 
have  not  held  their  ground,  as  '  placation,'  numerosity,' 
'  harmonical.'  Of  those  novelties  which  he  disallowed, 
in  some  cases,  as  in  the  words,  '  facundity,'  '  implete,' 
'  attemptat,  ('attentat'),  he  only  anticipated  the  de- 
cision of  a  later  day ;  while  others  which  he  disal- 
lowed no  less,  as  '  audacious,'  '  compatible,'  '  egregi- 
ous,' have  maintained  their  ground.  These  too  have 
done  the  same ;  '  despicable,' '  destruction,' '  homicide,' 
'obsequious,'  '  ponderous,'  '  portentous,'  '  prodigious,' 
all  which  another  writer  a  little  earlier  condemns  as 
"  inkhorn  terms,  smelling  too  much  of  the  Latin." 

It  is  curious  to  observe  the  "  words  of  art,"  as  he 
calls  them,  which  Philemon  Holland,  a  voluminous 
translator  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  and  beginning 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  counts  it  needful  to  ex- 
plain in  a  sort  of  glossary  which  he  appends  to  his 
translation  of  Pliny's  Natural  History*     One  can 

*  London,  1601.  Besides  this  work,  Holland  translated  the  whole 
of  Plutarch's  Moralia,  Livy,  Suetonius,  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  and 


DATE   OF  SOME   FRENCH   WORDS.  6T 

liardly  at  the  present  day  understand  how  any  person 
who  would  care  to  consult  the  book  at  all  would  find 
any  difficulty  with  words  like  the  following :  '  acrimo- 
ny,' '  austere,' '  bulb,' '  consolidate,' '  debility,' '  dose,' 
'ingredient,'  'opiate,'  'propitious,'  'symptom'  —  all 
which,  however,  as  novelties,  he  carefully  explains. 
Some  of  the  words  in  his  glossary,  it  is  true,  are 
harder  and  more  technical  than  these ;  but  a  vast 
proportion  of  them  present  no  greater  difficulty  than 
those  which  I  have  adduced.* 

tliimdcn's  Britannia.  His  works  make  a  part  of  the  "  library  of  dull- 
ness" in  Pope's  Danciad: — 

"  De  Lyra  there  a  dreadful  front  extends, 
And  here  the  groaning  shelves  Philemon  bends." 

Very  unjustly ;  the  authors  whom  he  has  translated  are  all  more  or 
less  important,  and  his  versions  of  them  a  mine  of  genuine  idiomatic 
English,  neglected  by  most  of  our  lexicographers,  wrought  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  and  with  great  advantage  by  Richardson  ;  yet  capa- 
ble, as  it  seems  to  me,  of  yielding  much  more  in  illustration  of  the 
language  than  they  yet  have  yielded. 

*  And  so,  too,  in  Fi-ench,  it  is  surprising  to  find  of  how  late  intro- 
duction are  many  words,  which  it  seems  as  if  the  language  could 
never  have  done  without.  'Desint^ressement,'  'exactitude,'  'saga- 
cite,'  'bravoure,'  were  not  introduced  till  late  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. 'Renaissance,'  'emportement,'  ' desagrdment,'  were  all  recent 
in  1675  (Bouhours) ;  'indevot,'  '  intolerance,' '  impardonnable,' *  ir- 
r^ligieux,'  were  struggling  into  allowance  at  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  were  not  established  till  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth.  'Insidieux' was  invented  byMalherbe;  'frivolite' does 
not  appear  in  the  earlier  editions  of  the  Dictionary  of  the  Academy; 
the  abbe  de  St.  Pierre  was  the  first  to  employ  '  bienfaisance,'  the  elder 
Balzac  'feliciter,'  Sarrasin  'burlesque.'  Madame  de  Sevign6  ex- 
claims against  her  daughter  for  employing  '  effervescence'  in  a  let- 
ter. ("  Comment  dites-vous  cela,  ma  fillel  Voil;\  un  mot  dont  jo 
n'avais  jamais  oui  parler.")  'Demagogue'  was  first  hazarded  by 
Bossuer,  and  was  counted  so  bold  a  novelty,  that  it  was  long  before 
any  ventured  to  follow  him  in  its  use.  Somewhat  earlier,  Montaigne 
had  introduced  'diversion'  and   '  enfantillag'%'  tliougli   not  without 

3* 


58  GAINS   OF  THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

The  period  during  which  this  naturalization  of  Latin 
words  in  the  English  language  was  going  actively  for- 
ward, may  be  said  to  have  continued  till  about  the 
restoration  of  Charles  II.  It  first  received  a  check 
from  the  coming  up  of  French  tastes,  fashions,  and 
habits  of  thought,  consequent  on  that  event.  The 
writers  already  formed  before  that  period,  such  as 
Cudworth  and  Barrow,  still  continued  to  write  their 
stately  sentences,  Latin  in  structure  and  Latin  in  dic- 
tion, but  not  so  those  of  a  younger  generation.  We 
may  say  of  this  influx  of  Latin,  that  it  left  the  lan- 
guage immensely  increased  in  copiousness,  with  greatly 
enlarged  capabilities,  but  perhaps  somewhat  burdened, 
and  not  always  able  to  move  gracefully  under  the 
weight  of  its  new  acquisitions ;  for  as  Dryden  has 
somewhere  truly  said,  it  is  easy  enough  to  acquire 
foreign  words ;  but  to  know  what  to  do  with  them 
after  you  have  acquired,  is  the  difficulty.  It  might 
have  received,  indeed,  most  serious  injury,  if  all  the 
words  which  the  great  writers  of  this  second  Latin 
period  of  our  language  employed,  and  so  proposed  as 
candidates  for  admission  into  it,  had  received  the 
stamp  of  popular  allowance. 

being  rebuked  by  contemporaries  on  the  score  of  the  last.  *  Conver- 
tisseur'  was  born  of  those  hateful  efforts  to  convert  the  French  protest- 
ants  at  so  much  a  head;  one  who  undertook  this  on  a  large  scale 
being  so  called.  Caron  gave  to  the  language  'avant-propos,' Ron- 
sard  '  avidite/  Joachim  Dubellay  *  patrie,'  Denis  Sauvage  ' juriscon- 
sulte/ Menage  'prosateur/ Desportes  'pudeur/  Chapelain  'urban- 
it^/  and  Etienne  first  brought  in,  apologizing  at  the  same  time  for  the 
boldness  of  it,  '  analogic.'  ("  Si  les  oreilles  frangoises  peuvent  porter 
ce  mot.")  'Preliber'  (prgelibare)  is  a  word  of  our  own  day;  and  it 
was  Charles  Nodier  who,  if  he  did  not  coin,  yet  revived  the  obsolete 
*simplesse.'  —  See  Genin,  Variations  du  Langage  Fran^ais,  pp.  308- 
319. 


LATIN   WORDS   REJECTED.  59 

But,  happily,  it  was  not  so  ;  it  was  here,  as  it  had 
been  before  with  the  French  importations,  and  with 
the  earlier  Latin  of  Lydgate  and  Occleve.  The  re- 
active powers  of  the  language,  enabling  it  to  throw 
off  that  which  Was  foreign  to  it,  did  not  fail  to  dis- 
play themselves  now,  as  they  had  done  on  former 
occasions.  The  number  of  unsuccessful  candidates 
for  admission  into,  and  permanent  naturalization  in, 
the  language  during  this  period,  is  enormous ;  and 
one  must  say  that,  in  almost  all  instances  where  the 
alien  act  has  been  enforced,  the  sentence  of  exclusion 
was  a  just  one ;  it  was  such  as  the  circumstances  of 
the  case  abundantly  bore  out.  Either  the  words  were 
not  idiomatic,  or  were  not  intelligible,  or  were  not 
needed,  or  looked  ill,  or  sounded  ill,  or  some  other 
valid  reason  existed  against  them.  A  lover  of  his 
native  tongue  will  tremble  to  think  what  that  tongue 
would  have  become,  if  all  the  vocables  from  the  Latin 
and  the  Greek  which  were  then  introduced  or  endorsed 
by  illustrious  names,  had  been  admitted  on  the  strength 
of  their  recommendation  ;  if  '  torve'  and  '  tetric'  (Ful- 
ler), 'cecity'  (Hooker),  '  immanity'  (Shakespeare), 
'  insulse'  and  '  insulsity'  (Milton,  prose), '  scelestick' 
(Feltham) , '  splendidious'  (Drayton) , '  pervicacy'  (Bax- 
ter), '  lepid'  and  '  sufflaminate'  (Barrow),  'facinorous' 
(Donne),  '  immorigerous,'  '  clancular,'  '  ferity,' '  ustu- 
lation,'  '  stultiloquy,'  '  lipothymy'  (Xsi-ro^u^j'a),  '  hype- 
raspist'  (all  in  Jeremy  Taylor), '  pauciloquy'  and  '  mul- 
tiloquy'  (Beaumont,  Psyche) ;  if  '  dyscolous'  (Foxe), 
'  moliminously'  (Cud worth),  '  immarcescible'  (Bishop 
Hall),  '  ataraxy'  (Alley tree),  'exility,'  '  spinosity,' 
'  incolumity,'  '  solertiousness,'  '  eluctate,'  '  eximious' 
(all  in  Hacket),  '  arride'  (ridiculed  by  Ben  Jonson), 


60  GAINS   OF  THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

with  the  hundreds  of  other  words  like  these,  and  even 
more  monstrous  than  are  some  of  these,  not  to  speak 
of  such  Italian  as  '  leggiadrous'  (Beaumont,  Psyche)^ 
had  not  been  rejected  and  disallowed  by  the  true  in- 
stinct of  the  national  mind. 

A  great  many,  too,  were  allowed  and  adopted,  but 
not  exactly  in  the  shape  in  which  they  first  were  in- 
troduced among  us :  they  were  made  to  drop  their 
foreign  termination,  or  otherwise  their  foreign  appear- 
ance, to  conform  themselves  to  English  ways,  and  only 
so  were  finally  incorporated  into  the  great  family  of 
English  words.*  Thus,  of  Greek  words  we  have  the 
following :  '  pyramis'  and  '  pyramides,'  forms  often  em- 
ployed by  Shakespeare,  became  '  pyramid'  and  '  pyra- 
mids ;' '  synonymon'  (Jeremy  Taylor),  or '  synonymum' 
(Hacket),  and  '  synonyma'  (Milton,  prose),  became 
severally  '  synonym'  and  '  synonyms  ;'  '  syntaxis'  (Ful- 
ler) became  '  syntax  ;' '  epitheton'  (Cowell)  '  epithet ;' 
'  epocha'  (Dryden)  '  epoch ;' '  chylus'  (Bacon)  '  chyle ;' 
'  apostata'  (Massinger)  '  apostate  ;'  '  despota'  (Fox) 
'  despot ;' '  misanthropos' (Shakespeare)  '  misanthrope ;' 
*  idioma'  and  '  prosodia'  (both  in  Daniel,  prose)  '  idi- 
om' and  '  prosody ;' '  phantasma'  (Donne)  '  phantasm ;' 
'  magnes'  (Gabriel  Harvey)  '  magnet ;'  '  cynosura' 
(Hacket)  '  cynosure ;'  '  galaxias'  (Fox)  '  galaxy  ;' 
'  heros'  (Henry  More)  '  hero ;'  '  epitaphy'  (Hawes) 
'  epitaph.'  The  same  process  has  gone  on  in  a  multi- 
tude of  Latin  words,  which  testify  by  their  termina- 
tions that  they  were,  and  were  felt  to  be,  Latin  at 

*  J,  Grimm  {Worterhuch,  p.  xxvi.) :  "Fiillt  von  ungefahr  ein 
fremdes  wort  in  den  brunnen  einer  sprache,  so  Avird  es  so  lange  darin 
umgetrieben,  bis  es  ihre  farbe  anniramt,  und  seiner  fremden  art  zura 
trotzc  wie  ein  lieimischcs  aussieht." 


NATURALIZATION   OF   WORDS.  61 

their  first  employment ;  though  now  they  arc  such  no 
longer.  Thus,  Bacon  uses  generally  —  I  know  not 
whether  always  — '  insecta'  for  '  msects  ;'  so  '  intcrsti- 
tium'  (Fuller)  preceded  '  interstice ;' '  cxpansum'  (Jer- 
emy Taylor)  '  expanse  ;'  and  '  preludium'  (Beaumont, 
Psyche)  '  prelude  ;'  we  have  '  intervalla,'  not  '  inter- 
vals,' in  Chillingworth  ;  '  archiva,'  not  '  archives,'  in 
Baxter;  '  demagogi,'  not  '  demagogues,' in  Hacket ; 
'  pantomimi'  in  Lord  Bacon  for  '  pantomimes  ;'  '  atomi' 
in  Lord  Brooke  for  'atoms:'  'effigies'  and  '  statua' 
(both  in  Shakespeare)  went  before  '  effigy'  and '  statue ;' 
and  '  abyssus'  (Jackson)  before  '  abyss  ;'  while  only 
after  a  while,  '  quasre'  gave  place  to  '  query,'  and 
'  plaudite'  (Henry  More)  to  '  plaudit ;'  and  the  low 
Latin  '  mummia'  (Webster)  became  '  mummy.'  The 
widely-extended  change  of  such  words  as  '  innocency,' 
'  indolency,'  '  temperancy,'  and  the  large  family  of 
words  with  the  same  termination,  into  'innocence,' 
'  indolence,'  '  temperance,'  and  the  like,  can  only  be 
regarded  as  part  of  the  same  process  of  entire  natu- 
ralization. 

The  plural  very  often  tells  the  secret  of  a  word,  and 
of  the  light  in  which  it  is  regarded  by  those  who  em- 
ploy it,  when  the  singular,  being  less  capable  of  modi- 
fication, would  have  failed  to  do  so :  thus,  when  Hol- 
land writes  '  phalanges,'  '  idese,'  it  is  clear  that '  pha- 
lanx' and  '  idea'  were  still  Greek  words  for  him ;  as 
'  dogma'  was  for  Glanville,  when  he  made  its  plural 
not '  dogmas,'  but '  dogmata  ;'  and  when  Spenser  uses 
'  heroes'  as  a  trisyllable,  it  plainly  is  not  yet  thor- 
oughly English  for  him.  '  Cento'  is  not  English,  but 
a  Latin  word  used  in  English,  so  long  as  it  makes  its 
plural  not  '  centos'  but  '  centones,'  as  in  the  anon}^- 


GAINS   OP  THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

translation  of  Augustin's  City  of  God;  and  '  bi- 
sontes,'  used  by  Holland,  shows  that '  bison'  was  still 
regarded  by  him  as  a  foreign  word.  Pope,  in  like 
manner,  could  have  only  written  the  following  line  — 

"  Why  Jove's  satellites  are  less  than  Jove"  — 

making,  as  he  evidently  does,  '  satellites'  a  quadri- 
syllable, under  the  feeling  that  he  was  still  dealing 
with  it  as  Latin.  '  Terminus,'  a  word  which  the  ne- 
cessities of  railways  have  introduced  among  us,  will 
not  be  truly  naturalized  till  we  have  agreed  to  use 
'  terminuses'  and  not  '  termini'  for  its  plural ;  nor 
'  phenomenon,'  till  we  have  renounced  *  phenomena.' 
Sometimes  it  has  been  found  convenient  to  retain  both 
plurals,  that  formed  according  to  the  laws  of  the  clas- 
sical language,  and  that  formed  according  to  the  laws 
of  our  own,  only  employing  them  in  different  senses : 
thus  is  it  with  '  indices'  and  '  indexes,'  '  genii'  and 
'  geniuses.' 

The  same  has  gone  on  with  words  from  other  lan- 
guages, as  from  the  Italian  and  the  Spanish:  thus, 

*  bandetto'  (Shakespeare), '  bandito'  (Jeremy  Taylor), 
becomes  '  bandit ;' '  caricatura'  (Sir  Thomas  Browne), 
'  caricature  ;' '  princessa'  (Hacket)  '  princess  ;' '  scara- 
mucha'  (Dryden)  '  scaramouch  ;'  '  caprichio'  (Shake- 
speare) becomes  first  '  caprich'  (Butler),  then  '  ca- 
price ;'  '  scalada'  (Heylin)  or  '  escalado'  (Holland) 

*  escalade  ;'  '  granada'  (Hacket)  '  grenade  ;'  '  ambus- 
cado,' '  stoccado,' '  barricado,' '  renegado,' '  hurricano' 
(all  in  Shakespeare),  '  brocado'  (Plackluyt),  '  palissa- 
do'  (Howell),  drop  their  foreign  terminations,  and  sev- 
erally become  '  ambuscade,'  '  stockade,'  '  barricade, 

*  renegade,' '  hurricane,' '  brocade,' '  palisade.'    '  Croi 


NATURALIZATION   OF   WORDS.  63 

sado'  in  like  manner  (Bacon)  becomes  first '  croisade' 
(Jortin),  and  then  '  crusade.'  Other  slight  modifica- 
tions of  spelling,  not  in  the  termination,  but  in  the 
body  of  a  word,  will  indicate  in  like  manner  its  more 
entire  incorporation  into  the  English  language.  Thus 
'  shash,'  a  Turkish  word,  becomes  '  sash ;'  '  colone, 
(Burton)  '  clown ;'  '  restoration'  was  at  first  spelt 
'  restauration ;'  and  so  long  as  '  vicinage'  was  spelt 
'  voisinage'*  (Bishop  Sanderson),  '  mirror'  miroir* 
(Fuller),  'recoil'  '  recule,'  or  'career'  '  carriere,* 
(both  by  Holland),  they  could  scarcely  be  said  to  be 
those  purely  English  words  which  now  they  are.f 

Here  and  there  even  at  this  comparatively  late 
period  of  the  language,  awkward  foreign  words  will 
be  recast  throughout  into  a  more  English  mould  ;  '  chi- 
rurgeon'  will  become  '  surgeon  ;'  hemorrhoids'  '  eme- 
rods  ;'  '  squinancy,  will  become  first '  squinzey'  (Jere- 
my Taylor),  and  then  '  quinsey  ;'  '  porkpisce'  (Spen- 
ser), that  is  sea-hog,  or  more  accurately  hog-fish,  will 
be  '  porpesse,'  and  then  '  porpoise,'  as  it  is  now.  In 
other  words  the  attempt  will  be  made,  but  it  will  be 
now  too  late  to  be  attended  with  success.  '  Physi- 
ognomy' will  not  give  place  to  '  visnomy,'  however 
Spenser  and  Shakespeare  employ  this  briefer  form ; 
nor  '  hippopotamus'  to  '  hippodame,'  even  at  Spenser's 
bidding.  In  like  manner  the  attempt  to  naturalize 
'  avant-courier'  in  the  shape  of  '  vancurrier'  has  failed. 
Other  words  also  we  meet  which  have  finally  refused 

*  Skinner  (Etymologican,  1671)  protests  aojainst  the  word  altogether, 
as  purely  French,  and  having  no  right  to  be  considered  English  at  all. 

t  It  is  curious  how  etfectually  the  nationality  of  a  word  may  by 
these  slight  alterations  in  spelling  be  disguised,  I  have  met  an  ex- 
cellent French  and  English  scholar  quite  unaware  that  'redingoto' 
was  our  *  riding-coat. ' 


GAINS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

to  take  a  more  popular  form,  although  such  was  once 
more  or  less  current.  Thus  Holland  wrote  '  cirque/ 
but  we  '  circus ;'  Dampier  '  volcan,'  but  this  has  not 
superseded  '  volcano  ;'  nor  '  pagod'  (Fope)  '  pagoda ;' 
hor  '  skelet'  (Holland)  ^  skeleton  ;'  nor  '  stimule' 
(Stubbs)  '  stimulus.'  Bolinbroke  wrote  '  exode,'  but 
we  hold  fast  to  '  exodus.'  '  Quirry'  (Sylvester)  has 
not  put  '  equerry,'  nor  '  superfice'  (Dryden)  '  super- 
ficies,' nor  '  limbeck' '  alembic,'  out  of  use.  Chaucer's 
'  potecary'  has  given  way  to  a  more  Greek  formation 
'  apothecary.'  Such  as  these  however  must  be  re- 
garded quite  as  the  exceptions  ;  the  tendency  of  things 
is  the  other  way. 

Looking  at  this  process  of  the  reception  of  foreign 
^%ords,  and  afterward  their  assimilation  to  our  own, 
and  the  great  number  of  these  in  which  this  work  has 
been  accomplished,  we  may  trace,  as  was  to  be  ex- 
pected, a  certain  conformity  between  the  genius  of 
our  institutions  and  that  of  our  language.  It  is  the 
very  character  of  our  institutions  to  repel  none,  but 
rather  to  afford  a  shelter  and  a  refuge  to  all,  from 
whatever  quarter  they  come  ;  a,nd  after  a  while  longer 
or  shorter,  all  these  strangers  and  incomers  have  been 
incorporated  into  the  English  nation,  within  one  or 
two  generations  have  forgotten  that  they  were  ever 
any  other  than  members  of  it,  retaining  no  other 
reminiscence  of  their  foreign  extraction  than  some 
slight  difference  of  name,  and  that  often  disappearing 
or  having  disappeared.  Exactly  so  has  it  been  with 
the  English  language.  None  has  been  less  exclusive  ; 
none  has  stood  less  upon  niceties ;  none  has  thrown 
open  its  arms  wider,  with  a  greater  confidence,  a  con* 
fidence  justified  by  experience,  that  it  could  make 


FRENCH   AT  THE  RESTORATION.  65 

truly  its  own,  assimilate  and  subdue  to  itself  what- 
ever it  thought  good  to  receive  into  its  bosom. 

Such  are  the  two  great  enlargements  from  without 
of  our  vocabulary.  All  other  are  minor  and  subor- 
dinate. Thus  the  introduction  of  French  tastes  by 
Charles  II.  and  his  courtiers  returning  from  exile,  to 
which  1  have  just  adverted,  ^hough  it  rather  modified 
the  structure  of  our  sentences  than  the  elements  of 
our  vocabulary,  gave  us  some  new  words.  In  one  of 
Dryden's  plays.  Marriage  a  la  Mode,  a  lady  full  of 
afiectation  is  introduced,  who  is  always  employing 
French  idioms  in  preference  to  English,  French  words 
rather  than  native.  It  is  not  a  little  curious  that  of 
these,  which  are  thus  put  into  her  mouth  to  render 
her  ridiculous,  not  a  few  are  excellent  English  now, 
and  have  nothing  far-sought  or  afiected  about  them — 
so  often  does  it  prove  that  what  is  laughed  at  in  the 
beginning,  is  by  all  admitted  and  allowed  at  the  last. 
For  example,  to  speak  of  a  person  being  in  the  '  good 
graces'  of  another  has  nothing  in  it  ridiculous  now ; 
nor  yet  have  the  words  '  repartee,'  '  embarrass,'  '  cha- 
grin,' '  grimace ;'  which  all  must  plainly  have  been 
both  novel  and  affected  at  the  time  w^hen  Dryden 
wrote.  '  Fougue'  and  '  fraischeur,*  which  he  himself 
employed  —  being  it  is  true,  no  frequent  offender  in 
this  way  —  have  not  been  justified  by  the  same  suc- 
cess. 

Nor  can  it  be  said  that  this  adoption  and  natural- 
ization of  foreign  words  ever  ceases  in  a  language. 
Tliere  are  periods,  as  we  have  seen,  when  this  goes 
forward  much  more  largely  than  at  others ;  when  a 
language  throws  open,  as  it  were,  its  doors,  and  wel- 
comes strangers  with  an  especial  freedom ;  but  there 


66       GAINS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

is  never  a  time,  when  one  by  one  these  foreigners  and 
strangers  are  not  stepping  into  it.  We  do  not  for  the 
most  part  observe  the  fact,  at  least  not  while  it  is 
actually  doing.  Time,  the  greatest  of  all  innovators, 
manages  his  innovations  so  dexterously,  spreads  them 
over  such  vast  periods,  and  therefore  brings  them 
about  so  gradually,  that  often,  while  effecting  the 
mightiest  changes,  he  seems  to  us  to  be  effecting  none 
at  all. 

It  is,  indeed,  well-nigh  impossible  to  conceive  any- 
thing more  gradual  than  the  steps  by  which  a  foreign 
word  is  admitted  into  the  full  rights  of  an  English 
one  ;  and  thus  the  process  of  its  incoming  often  eludes 
our  notice  altogether.  It  appears  to  me  that  we  may 
best  understand  this  by  fixing  our  attention  upon  some 
single  word  which  at  this  very  moment  is  in  the  course 
of  becoming  English.  I  know  no  better  example  than 
the  French  word  '  prestige'  will  afford.  '  Prestige' 
manifestly  supplies  a  want  in  our  tongue  ;  it  expresses 
something  which  no  single  word  in  English  could  ex- 
press ;  which  could  only  be  expressed  by  a  long  cir- 
cumlocution ;  being  that  magic  influence  on  others, 
which  past  successes,  being  as  it  were  the  pledge  and 
promise  of  future  ones,  breed.  The  word  has  thus 
naturally  come  to  be  of  very  frequent  use  by  good 
English  writers ;  for  they  do  not  feel  that  in  employ- 
ing it  they  are  passing  by  as  good  or  a  better  word 
of  their  own.  At  first,  all  used  it  avowedly  as  French, 
writing  it  in  italics  to  indicate  this.  At  the  present 
moment  some  writers  do  so  still,  some  do  not ;  that 
is,  some  regard  it  still  as  foreign,  others  consider  that 
it  has  now  become  English,  and  obtained  settlement 


NATURALIZATION   OF   WORDS.  67 

among  us.*  Gradually  the  number  of  those  who  write 
it  in  italics  will  become  fewer  and  fewer,  till  they 
cease  altogether.  It  will  then  only  need  that  the  ac- 
cent should  be  shifted,  in  obedience  to  the  tendencies 
of  the  English  language,  as  far  back  in  the  word  as 
it  will  go  —  that  instead  of  '  prestige,' it  should  be 
pronounced  '  prestige,'  even  as  within  these  few  years 
instead  of  '  depot'  we  have  learned  to  say  '  depot'  — 
and  its  naturalization  will  be  complete.  1  have  little 
doubt  that  in  twenty  years  it  will  be  so  pronounced 
by  the  great  body  of  well-educated  Englishmen,  and 
that  our  present  pronunciation  will  pass  away  in  the 
same  manner  as  '  obkege,'  once  universal,  has  passed 
away,  and  given  place  to  '  obltge.'f 

Let  me  here  observe,  in  passing,  that  the  process 
of  throwing  the  accent  of  a  word  back,  by  way  of 

*  We  may  see  something  of  the  same  process  in  Greek  words  which 
were  being  incorporated  in  the  Latin.  Thus,  Cicero  writes  dvTinoSEg 
{Acad.,  ii.,  39,  123),  but  Seneca  (£/).,  122)  'antipodes;'  that  is,  the 
word  for  Cicero  was  still  Greek,  while  in  the  period  that  elapsed 
between  him  and  Seneca,  it  had  become  Latin.  Exactly  in  the  same 
way  *  criterion'  was  so  little  felt  to  be  an  English  word  in  the  time  of 
Jeremy  Taylor,  that  he  writes  it  Kpirfipiov,  and  in  like  manner  not 
*  theocracy'  but  BeoKparia.  '  Apotheosis'  was  so  little  familiar  when 
Henry  More  used  it,  that  he  wrote  dnoQiojcn ;  and  Sylvester,  in  his 
Funeral  Sermon  on  Richard  Baxter,  ascribes  to  him,  not  '  pathos,'  but 
niiOoi.  Ben  Jonson  {Discoveries)  speaks  of  "the  knowledge  of  the 
liberal  arts,  which  the  Greeks  called  cyKVKXo-rraidEiat'."  He  is  not,  in- 
deed, perfectly  accurate  in  this  statement ;  for  the  Greeks  spoke  of 

ev   kvkX'o    naihia,   but   had  no   SUCh   one   word  as    £y»ct)»fXo7ra«j£j«.      We 

gather,  however,  from  these  words,  as  from  Lord  Bacon's  using  the 
term  'circle-learning'  {=  orbis  doctrinaj,  Quintilian),  that  'encyclo- 
paedia' did  not  exist  in  their  time. 

t  See  in  Coleridge's  Tahle-Talk,  p.  3,  the  am.using  story  of  John 
Kemblc's  stately  correction  of  the  prince  of  Wales  for  adhering  to 
the  earlier  pronunciation,  '  obleege'  —  '*  It  will  become  your  royal 
mouth  better  to  say  oblige." 


68  GAINS   OP   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

completing  its  naturalization,  is  one  which  we  may 
note  constantly  going  forward  in  our  language.  Thus, 
while  Chaucer  accentuates  sometimes  '  nature,'  he  also 
accentuates  elsewhere  '  nature  ;'  while  sometimes  '  vir- 
tue,' at  other  times  ^  virtue.'  '  Academy'  was  '  aca- 
demy' with  Cowley  and  Butler  ;*  '  prostrate'  was  '  pros- 
trate,' and  '  impulse'  '  impulse'  with  Milton.  '  Essay' 
was  '  essay'  with  Dryden  and  with  Pope :  the  first 
closes  an  heroic  line  with  the  word ;  Pope  does  the 
same  with  '  barrier'f  and  'effort'  —  therefore  pro- 
nounced '  barrier,'  '  effort,'  by  him. 

Besides  '  prestige'  there  is  a  considerable  number 
of  other  French  words  which  in  like  manner  are  at 
this  moment  hovering  on  the  verge  of  English,  and 
hardly  knowing  whether  they  shall  become  such  or 
not.  Some  of  these,  we  may  confidently  anticipate, 
will  complete  this  naturalization ;  others  will  after  a 
time  retreat  again,  and  become  for  us  avowedly 
French.  Such  are  '  ennui,'  exploitation,'  '  verve,' 
'  persiflage,'  '  badinage,'  '  chicane,'  '  finesse,'  and  oth- 
ers. In  respect  of  most  among  these  we  have  been 
tempted  to  that  frequent  employment  of  them,  out  of 
which  adoption  gradually  proceeds,  by  the  fact  that 
they  express  shades  of  meaning  not  expressed  by  any 
words  of  our  own.  '  Solidarity,'  a  word  which  we 
owe  to  the  French  communists,  and  which  signifies  a 
fellowship  in  gain  and  loss,  in  honor  and  dishonor,  in 
victory  and  defeat  —  a  being,  so  to  speak,  all  in  the 
same  bottom  —  is  so  convenient  that,  unattractive  as 
tte  word  must  be  allowed  to  be,  it  will  be  in  vain  to 

*  "In  this  great  academy  of  mankind." 

To  the  Memory  of  Du  Val 
I  « 'Twixt  that  and  reason  what  a  nice  barrier  I" 


GREEK   AND  LATIN  IN   ENGLISH.  69 

struggle  against  its  reception.  The  newspapers  al- 
ready have  it,  and  books  will  not  long  exclude  it ; 
not  to  say  that  it  has  estal)lislied  itself  in  German, 
and  probably  in  other  European  languages  as  well. 

Greek  and  Latin  words  also  we  still  continue  to 
adopt,  although  now  not  any  longer  in  masses,  but 
only  one  by  one.  With  the  lively  interest  which  al- 
ways has  been  felt  in  classical  studies  among  us,  and 
which  will  continue  to  be  felt  so  long  as  any  greatness 
and  nobleness  survive  in  our  land,  it  must  needs  be 
that  accessions  from  these  quarters  would  never  cease 
altogether.  I  do  not  refer  here  to  purely  scientific 
terms ;  these,  so  long  as  they  continue  such,  and  do 
not  pass  beyond  the  threshold  of  the  science  or  sci- 
ences for  the  use  of  which  they  were  invented,  being 
never  heard  on  the  lips  or  employed  in  the  writings 
of  any  but  the  cultivators  of  these  sciences,  have  no 
right  to  be  properly  called  words  at  all.  They  are 
a  kind  of  shorthand  of  the  science,  or  algebraic  nota- 
tion ;  and  will  not  find  place  in  a  rightly-constituted 
dictionary  of  the  language,  but  rather  in  a  technical 
dictionary  apart  by  themselves.  Of  these,  compelled 
by  the  advances  of  physical  science,  we  have  coined 
multitudes  out  of  number  in  these  later  times,  fashion- 
ing them  mainly  from  the  Greek,  no  other  language 
within  our  reach  yielding  itself  at  all  so  easily  to  our 
needs. 

Of  non  scientific  words,  both  Greek  and  Latin,  some 
have  made  their  way  among  us  quite  in  these  latter 
times.  To  speak  first  of  Greek,  Burke  attempted  the 
verb  '  to  spheterize,'  for,  to  appropriate  or  make  one's 
own ;  but  this  without  success.  Others  have  been 
more  fortunate  ;  '  aesthetic'  we  have  got  indeed  through 


70      •  GAINS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

the  Germans,  but  from  the  Greeks.  Tennyson  has 
given  allowance  to  '  ason  ;'  and  '  myth'  is  a  deposite 
which  vast  and  far-reachinp^  controversies  have  left  in 
the  popular  language.  '  Photography'  is  an  example 
of  what  I  was  just  now  speaking  of — namely,  a  scien- 
tific word  which  has  travelled  beyond  the  limits  of 
the  science  which  it  designates,  and  which  gave  it 
birth ;  being  heard  on  the  lips  of  others  besides  pho- 
tographers, and  therefore  having  a  right  to  be  con- 
sidered as  making  part  of  the  language.  '  Stereotype' 
is  another  word  of  the  same  character.  It  was  in- 
vented—  not  the  thing,  but  the  word — by  Didot,  not 
very  long  since ;  but  is  now  absorbed  into  healthy 
general  circulation,  being  current  in  a  secondary  and 
figurative  sense.  Ruskin  has  given  to  '  ornamenta- 
tion' the  sanction  and  authority  of  his  name.  Not 
quite  so  new,  but  of  quite  recent  introduction  into  the 
language,  are  '  normal,'  '  abnormal.' 

When  we  consider  the  near  aflSnity  between  the 
English  and  German  languages,  which,  if  not  sisters, 
may  at  least  be  regarded  as  first-cousins,  it  is  some- 
what remarkable  that  almost  since  the  day  when  they 
parted  company,  each  to  fulfil  its  own  destiny,  there 
has  been  little  further  commerce  between  them  in  the 
matter  of  giving  or  taking,  that  is,  until  within  the 
last  fifty  years.  At  any  rate,  adoptions  on  our  part 
from  the  German  have  been  till  within  this  period 
extremely  rare.  The  explanation  of  this  lies  in  the 
fact  that  the  literary  activity  of  Germany  did  not  be- 
gin till  very  late,  nor  our  interest  in  it  till  later  still 
—  not  till  the  beginning  of  the  present  century.  Yet 
*  plunder,'  as  I  have  mentioned  elsewhere,  was  brought 
back  from  Germany  about  the  beginning  of  our  civil 


GERMAN   IMPORTATIONS.  71 

wars,  by  the  soldiers  who  had  served  under  Gustavus 
Adolphus  and  his  captains.  '  Iceberg'  (eisberg)  also 
we  must  have  taken  whole  from  the  German,  as,  had 
we  constructed  the  word  for  ourselves,  we  should 
have  made  it,  not  '  ice-berg-,^  but  '  ice-mountain.^  I 
have  not  found  it  in  our  earlier  voyagers,  whose  con- 
stant-term, as  far  as  I  know,  is  *  icefield.'  An  Eng- 
lish '  swindler'  is  not  exactly  a  German  '  schwindler  ;' 
yet  the  notion  of  the  '  nebulo,'  though  more  latent  in 
the  German,  is  common  to  both,  and  we  must  have 
drawn  the  word  from  Germany  (it  is  not  an  old  one 
in  our  tongue)  during  the  course  of  the  last  century. 
If '  /i/<?-guard'  was  originally,  as  Richardson  suggests, 
*  /^i6-garde,'  or  '  ^oc?y-guard,'  and  from  that  trans- 
formed, by  the  determination  of  Englishmen  to  make 
it  significant  in  English,  into  *  /i/(?-guard,'  or  guard 
defending  the  life  of  the  sovereign,  this  will  be  an- 
other word  from  the  same  quarter.  Yet  I  have  my 
doubts.  '  Leib-garde'  would  scarcely  have  found  its 
way  hither  before  the  accession  of  the  house  of  Han- 
over, or  at  any  rate  before  the  arrival  of  Dutch  Wil- 
liam with  his  memorable  guards ;  while  '  lifeguard,' 
in  its  present  shape,  is  certainly  an  older  word  in  the 
language,  as  witness  Fuller's  words :  "  The  Chere- 
thites  were  a  kind  of  lifegard  to  King  David."* 

Of  late,  our  German  importations  have  been  some- 
what more  numerous.  With  several  German  oin- 
pound  words  we  have  been  in  recent  times  so  well 
pleased,  that  we  must  needs  adopt  them  into  English, 
or  imitate  them  in  it.  We  have  not  always  been 
very  happy  in  those  which  we  have  selected  for  imita- 
tion or  adoption.     Thus,  we  might  have  been  satisfied 

*  Pisgah  Sight  of  Palestine,  1650,  p.  217. 


72  GAINS   OF   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

with  'manual/  and  not  put  together  that  very  ugly 
and  very  unnecessary  word  '  liandbook,'  which  is 
scarcely,  I  should  suppose,  ten  or  fifteen  years  old 
And  now  we  are  threatened  with  '  word-building,'  as 
I  see  a  book  announced  under  the  title  of  "  Latin 
word-building y  '  Ein-seitig'  (itself  a  modern  word, 
if  I  mistake  not,  or  at  any  rate  modern  in  its  second- 
ary application)  has  not,  indeed,  been  adopted,  but  is 
evidently  the  pattern  on  which  we  have  formed  '  one- 
sided,' a  word  to  which  a  few  years  ago  something  of 
affectation  was  attached;  so  that  any  one  who  em- 
ployed it  at  once  gave  evidence  that  he  was  more  or 
less  a  dealer  in  German  wares :  it  has,  however,  its 
manifest  conveniences,  and  will  hold  its  ground.  '  Fa- 
therland' (vaterland),  on  the  contrary,  will  scarcely 
establish  itself  among  us ;  the  note  of  affectation  will 
continue  to  cleave  to  it,  and  we  shall  go  on  contented 
with  '  native  country'  to  the  end.  The  most  success- 
ful of  these  compounded  words,  borrowed  recently 
from  the  German,  is  '  folk-lore  ;'  and  the  substitution 
of  this  for  '  popular  superstitions,'  a  long  and  Latin 
phrase,  must  be  esteemed,  I  think,  an  unquestionable 
gain. 

To  speak  now  of  other  sources  from  which  the  new 
words  of  a  language  are  derived.  Of  course,  the  pe- 
riod when  absolutely  new  roots  are  generated  will 
have  passed  away,  long  before  men  begin  to  take  any 
notice  by  a  reflective  act  of  processes  going  forward 
in  the  language  which  they  speak.  This  pure,  pro- 
ductive energy,  creative  we  might  call  it,  belongs 
only  to  the  earliest  stages  of  a  nation's  existence  —  to 
times  quite  out  of  the  ken  of  history.     It  is  only  from 


COMPOUNDED   WORDS.  73 

materials  already  existing  either  in  its  own  bosom  or 
in  the  bosom  of  other  languages,  that  it  can  enrich 
itself  in  the  later  or  historical  stages  of  its  life. 

And  first,  it  can  bring  its  own  words  into  new  com- 
binations ;  it  can  join  two,  and  sometimes  even  more 
than  two,  of  the  words  which  it  already  has,  and  form 
out  of  them  a  new  one.  It  need  hardly  be  observed 
that  much  more  is  wanted  here  than  merely  to  unite 
two  or  more  words  to  one  another  by  a  hyphen ;  this 
is  not  to  make  a  new  word :  they  must  really  coalesce 
and  grow  together.  Different  languages  possess  this 
power  of  forming  new  words  by  the  combination  q£ 
old  in  very  different  degrees,  and  even  the  same  lan- 
guage at  different  periods  of  its  existence.  The  emi- 
nent felicity  of;  th^  Greek  in  tjiis  respect  has  bieen 
always  acknowledged.  "  The  joints  of  her  compound- 
ed words,"  says  Fuller,  *■'  are  so  naturally  oiled,  that 
they  run  nimbly  on  the  tongue,  which  makes  them, 
though  long,  never  tedious,  because  significant."*    Sir 

*  Holi/  State,  book  ii.,  chap.  vi.  There  was  a  time  when  the  Latin 
promised  to  display,  if  not  an  equal,  yet  not  a  very  inferior,  freedom 
in  this  forming  of  new  words  by  the  happy  marriage  of  old.  But  in 
this,  as  in  so  many  respects,  it  seemed  possessed,  at  the  period  of  its 
hi<;hest  culture,  with  a  timidity  which  caused  it  voluntarily  to  abdicate 
many  of  its  own  powers.  Where  do  we  find  in  the  Augustan  period 
of  the  language  so  grand  a  pair  of  epithets  as  these,  occurring  as  they 
do  in  a  single  line  of  Catullus  :  *  Ubi  cerva  silvicultrix,  ubi  aper  nc- 
morivagiis' ?  Virgil's  vitisator  (^n.,  vii.,  179)  is  not  his  own,  but 
derived  from  one  of  the  earlier  poets.  Nay,  the  language  did  not 
even  retain  those  compound  epithets  which  it  once  had  formed,  but 
was  content  to  let  numbers  of  them  drop  :  *  parcipromus,'  'turpilu- 
cricupidus,'  and  many  more,  do  not  extend  beyond  Plautus.  On  this 
matter  Quiiitilian  observes  (i.,  v.,  70) :  "  Res  tota  magis  Graecos  decet, 
nobis  minus  succedit ;  nee  id  fieri  natura  puto,  sed  alienis  favemus  ; 
ideoque  C4im  Kvprav-^^em  mirati  sumus,  incurvicervicum  vix  a  risu  de- 
fondimus."    Elsewhere  he  complains,  though  not  with  reference  to 

4 


74  GAINS   OF   THE   ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

Philip  Sidney  boasts  of  the  capability  of  our  English 
language  in  this  respect — that  "it  is  particularly 
happy  in  the  composition  of  two  or  three  words  to- 
gether, near  equal  to  the  Greek  "  No  one  has  done 
more  than  Milton  to  justify  this  praise,  or  to  make 
manifest  what  may  be  effected  by  this  marriage  of 
words.  Many  of  his  compound  epithets,  as  '  golden- 
tressed,'  '  tinsel-slippered,' '  coral-paven,'  '  flow'ry-kir- 
tled,'  '  violet-embroidered,'  '  vermeil-tinctured,'  are 
themselves  poems  in  miniature.  Not  unworthy  to  be 
set  beside  these  are  Sylvester's  ^  opal-colored  morn,' 
Drayton's  '■  silver-sanded  shore,'  and  perhaps  Mar- 
lowe's 'golden-fingered  Ind.' 

Our  modern  inventions  in  the  same  kind  are  for  the 
most  part  very  inferior :  they  could  hardly  fail  to  be 
so,  seeing  that  the  formative,  plastic  powers  of  a  lan- 
guage are  always  waning  and  diminishing  more  and 
more.  It  may  be,  and  indeed  is,  gaining  in  other 
respects,  but  in  this  it  is  losing ;  and  thus  it  is  not 
strange  if  its  later  births  in  this  kind  are  less  success- 
ful than  its  earlier.  Among  the  poets  of  our  own 
time,  Shelley  has  done  more  than  any  other  to  assert 
for  the  language  that  it  has  not  renounced  this  power ; 
while,  among  writers  of  prose  in  these  later  days, 
Jeremy  Bentham  has  been  at  once  one  of  the  boldest. 


compound  epithets,  of  the  little  generative  power  which  existed  in  tho 
Latin  language,  that  its  continual  losses  were  compensated  by  no 
equivalent  gains  (viii.,  vi.,  32):  "  Deinde,  tanquam  consummata 
sint  omnia,  nihil  generare  audemus  ipsi,  quum  raulta  quotidie  ab 
antiquis  ficta  moriantur."  Notwithstanding  this  complaint,  it  must 
be  owned  that  the  silver  age  of  the  language,  which  sought  to  re- 
cover, and  did  recover  to  some  extent,  the  abdicated  energies  of  its 
earlier  times,  reasserted  among  other  powers  that  of  combining  words, 
M'ith  a  certain  measure  of  success. 


ADJECTIVES   IN   AL.  75 

but  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  most  unfortunate,  of 
those  who  have  issued  this  money  from  their  mint.. 
Still  we  ought  not  to  forget,  while  we  divert  ourselves 
with  the  strange,  amorphous  progeny  of  his  brain,  that 
we  owe  international'  to  him — a  word  at  once  so 
convenient,  and  supplying  so  real  a  need,  that  it  was 
and  with  manifest  advantage  at  once  adopted  by  all. 
Another  way  in  which  languages  increase  their 
stock  of  vocables  is  by  the  forming  of  new  words  ac- 
cording to  the  analogy  of  formations,  which  in  seem- 
ingly parallel  cases  have  been  already  allowed.  Thus 
long  since  upon  certain  substantives  such  as 'nation,' 
'  congregation'  '  convention,'  were  formed  their  adjec- 
tives, '  national,'  '  congregational,'  '  conventional ;' 
yet  these  also  at  a  comparatively  modern  period ; 
'  congregational'  and  '  national'  first  rising  up  in  the 
Assembly  of  Divines,  or  during  the  time  of  the  Com- 
monwealth.* These  having  found  admission  into  the 
language,  it  is  attempted  to  repeat  the  process  in  the 
case  of  other  words  with  the  same  ending.  I  confess 
the  effect  is  often  exceedingly  disagreeable.  We  are 
now  pretty  well  used  to  '  educational,'  and  the  word 
is  sometimes  serviceable  enough  ;  but  I  can  perfectly 
remember  when  some  eighteen  year^  ago  an  "  Educa- 
tional Magazine"  was  started,  the  first  impression  on 
one's  mind  was,  that  a  work  having  to  do  with  edu- 
cation should  not  thus  bear  upon  its  front  an  offensive, 
or  to  say  the  best,  a  very  dubious  novelty  in  the  Eng- 
lish language.  These  adjectives  are  now  multiplying 
fast.  We  have  '  inflexional,'  '  denominational,'  and, 
not  content  with  this,  in  dissenting  magazines  at  least, 
the  monstrous  birth  '  denominationalism  ;'  '  emotional' 

*  CoUection  of  Scarce  Tracts,  edited  by  Sir  W.  Scott,  vol.  vii ,  p  91 


76       GAINS  OP  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

is  creeping  into  books,  *  sensational,'  and  others  as 
well ;  so  that  it  is  hard  to  say  where  this  influx  will 
stop,  or  whether  all  our  words  with  this  termination 
will  not  finally  generate  an  adjective.  Convenient  as 
you  may  sometimes  find  these,  I  would  yet  certainly 
counsel  you  to  abstain  from  all  but  the  perfectly  well 
recognised  formations  of  this  kind.  There  may  be 
cases  of  exception,  but  for  the  most  part  Pope's  advice 
is  good,  that  we  be  not  among  the  last  to  use  a  word 
which  is  going  out,  nor  among  the  first  to  employ  one 
that  is  coming  in. 

*  Starvation'  is  another  word  of  comparatively  re- 
cent introduction,  formed  in  like  manner  on  the  model 
of  preceding  formations  of  an  apparently  similar  char- 
acter—  its  first  formers,  indeed,  not  observing  that 
they  were  putting  a  Latin  termination  to  a  Saxon 
word.  Some  have  supposed  it  to  have  reached  us 
from  America.  It  has  not  however  travelled  from  so 
great  a  distance,  being  a  stranger  indeed,  yet  not  from 
beyond  the  Atlantic,  but  only  from  beyond  the  Tweed. 
It  is  ah  old  Scottish  word,  but  unknown  in  England, 
till  used  by  Mr.  Dundas,  the  first  Viscount  Melville, 
in  an  American  debate  in  1775.  That  it  then  jarred 
strangely  on  English  ears  is  evident  from  the  nick- 
name, "  starvation  Dundas,"  which  in  consequence  he 
obtained.* 

Again,  languages  enrich  themselves,  our  own  has 
done  so,  by  recovering  treasures  which  for  a  while 
had  been  lost  by  them  or  foregone.  I  do  not  mean 
that  all  which  drops  out  of  use  is  loss  ;  there  are  words 

*,.  =*=  See  Letters  of  Horace  Walpole  and  Mann,  vol.  ii ,  p.  396,  quoted 
in  Notes  and  Queries,  No.  22.5;  and  anotlier  proof  of  the  novelty  of  the 
word  in  Pegge's  Anecdotes  of  the  English  Language,  lf^l4,  p.  38. 


WORDS   COME  BACK   INTO    USE.  77 

which  it  is  gain  to  be  rid  of;  which  it  would  be  folly 
to  wish  to  revive;  of  which  Dryden,  setting  himself 
against  an  extravagant  zeal  in  this  direction,  says  in 
an  ungracious  comparison  —  they  do  "not  deserve 
this  redemption,  any  more  than  the  crowds  of  men 
who  daily  die,  or  are  slain  for  sixpence  in  a  battle, 
merit  to  bo  restored  to  life,  if  a  wish  could  revive 
them."*  There  are  others,  however,  which  it  is  a 
real  gain  to  draw  back  again  from  the  temporary  ob- 
livion which  had  overtaken  them ;  and  this  process 
of  their  setting  and  rising  again  is  not  so  unfrequent 
as  at  first  might  appear. 

You  may  perhaps  remember  that  Horace,  tracing 
in  a  few  memorable  lines  the  history  of  words,  while 
he  notes  that  many  once  current  have  uow  dropped 
out  of  use,  does  not  therefore  count  that  of  necessity 
their  race  is  for  ever  run ;  on  the  contrary  he  confi- 
dently anticipates  a  palingenesy  for  many  among 
them  ;f  and  I  am  convinced  that  there  has  been  such 
in  the  case  of  our  English  words  to  a  far  greater  ex- 
tent than  we  are  generally  aware.  Words  slip  almost 
or  quite  as  imperceptibly  back  into  use  as  they  once 
slipped  out  of  it.  Let  me  suggest  a  few  facts  in  evi- 
dence of  this.  In  the  contemporary  gloss  which  an 
anonymous  friend  of  Spenser's  furnished  to  his  Shep- 
herd's Calendar^  first  publislied  in  1579,  "  for  the 
exposition  of  old  words,"  as  he  declares,  he  thinks  it 
expedient  to  include  in  his  list,  the  following,  '  dap- 
per,' '  scathe,'  '  askance,'  '  sere,'  '  embellish,'  '  bevy,' 
•  forestall,'  '  fain,'  with  not  a  few  others  quite  as  fa- 

*  Postscript  to  his  Translation  of  the  uEneid. 
t  Multa  renascentur,  quae  jam  cecidere. 

De  A.  P.  46-32 ;  cf.  Ep.  ii.,  ii.,  115. 


78  GAINS    OF   THE    ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

miliar  as  these.  In  Speght's  Chaucer,  (1667),  there 
is  a  long  list  of  "  old  and  obscure  words  in  Chaucer 
explained  ;"  these  "  old  and  obscure  words"  including 
'  anthem,'  '  blithe,'  '  bland,'  '  chaplet,'  '  carol,'  '  del- 
uge,' '  franchise,'  '  illusion,'  '  problem,'  '  recreant,' 
'  sphere,'  '  tissue,'  '  transcend,'  w^ith  very  many  easier 
than  these.  In  Skinner's  Etymologicon  (1671),  there 
is  another  such  list  of  obsolete  words,*  and  among 
these  he  includes  '  to  dovetail,'  '  elvish,'  '  interlace' 
(enterlase),  'phantom'  (fantome),  'gawd,'  'glare,' 
'  encombred,'  '  masquerade'  (mascarade),  '  oriental,' 
'  plumage,'  '  pummel'  (pomell),  and  '  stew,'  that  is, 
for  fish.  Who  will  say  of  the  verb  '  to  hallow'  that 
it  is  now  even  obsolescent  ?  and  yet  Wallis  two  hun- 
dred years  ago  observed  —  "It  has  almost  gone  out 
of  use"  (fere  desuevit).  It  would  be  difficult  to  find 
an  example  of  the  verb,  '  to  advocate,'  between  Milton 
and  Burke.  Franklin,  a  close  observer  in  such  mat- 
ters, as  he  was  himself  an  admirable  master  of  English 
style,  considered  the  word  to  have  sprung  up  during 
his  own  residence  in  Europe.  In  this,  indeed,  he  was 
mistaken ;  it  had  only  during  this  period  revived. 
Johnson  says  of  'jeopardy'  that  it  is  "  a  word  not  now 
in  use ;"  which  certainly  is  not  any  longer  true. 

I  am  persuaded  that  in  facility  of  being  understood, 
Chaucer  is  not  merely  as  near,  but  much  nearer  to  us, 
than  Dryden  and  his  contemporaries  felt  him  to  be  to 
them.  He  and  the  writers  of  his  time  make  exactly 
the  same  sort  of  complaints,  only  in  still  stronger 
language,  about  his  archaic  phraseology  and  the  ob- 
scurities which  it  involves,  that  are  made  at  the  pres- 

*  Etymologicon   vocum  omnium  antiguarum  guce  usque  a   Wilhelmo 
Victore  invaluertmt,  et  jam  ante  parentum  cetatem  in  usu  esse  desierunt 


CHAUCER   AND    DRYDEN.  79 

ent  day.  Thus  iii  the  preface  to  his  Tales  from 
Chaucer,  having  quoted  some  not  very  difficult  lines 
from  the  earlier  poet  whom  he  was  modernizing,  he 
proceeds :  ''  You  have  here  a  specimen  of  Chaucer's 
language,  which  is  so  obsolete  that  his  sense  is  scarce 
to  be  understood."  Nor  was  it  merely  thus  with 
respect  of  Chaucer.  These  wits  and  poets  of  the 
court  of  Charles  II.  were  conscious  of  a  greater  gulf 
between  themselves  and  the  Elizabethan  era,  separated 
from  them  by  little  more  than  fifty  years,  than  any  of 
which  we  are  aware,  separated  from  it  by  nearly  two 
centuries  more.  I  do  not  mean  merely  that  they  felt 
themselves  more  removed  from  its  tone  and  spirit ; 
their  altered  circumstances  might  explain  this ;  but  I 
am  convinced  that  they  found  a  greater  difficulty  and 
strangeness  in  the  language  of  Spenser  and  Shake- 
speare than  we  find  now ;  that  it  sounded  in  many 
ways  more  uncouth,  more  old-fashioned,  more  abound- 
ing in  obsolete  terms,  than  it  does  in  our  ears  at  the 
present.  Only  in  this  way  can  I  explain  the  tone  in 
which  they  are  accustomed  to  speak  of  these  worthies 
of  the  near  past.  I  must  again  refer  to  D^yden,  the 
truest  representative  of  literary  England  in  its  good 
and  in  its  evil  during  the  last  half  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Of  Spenser,  whose  death  was  separated 
from  his  own  birth  by  little  more  than  tliirty  years, 
he  speaks  ^as  of  one  belonging  to  quite  a  different 
epoch,  counting  it  much  to  say,  ''  notwitlistanding  his 
obsolete  language,  he  is  still  intelligible."*  Nay,  hear 
what  his  judgment  is  of  Shakt^speare  himself,  so  far 
as  language  is  concerned :  "  It  must  be  allowed  to  the 
present  age  that  the  tongue  in  general  is  so  much  re- 

*  Preface  to  Juvenal, 


80  GAINS    OF   THE    ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

fined  since  Shakespeare's  time,  that  many  of  his  words 
and  more  of  his  phrases  are  scarce  intelligible.  And 
of  those  which  we  understand,  some  are  ungrammati- 
cal,  others  coarse ;  and  his  whole  style  is  so  pestered 
with  figurative  expressions,  that  it  is  as  affected  as  it 
is  obscure."* 

Sometimes  a  word  will  emerge  anew  from  the  under- 
current of  society,  not  indeed  new,  but  yet  to  most 
seeming  as  new,  its  very  existence  having  been  alto- 
gether forgotten  by  the  gl-eater  number  of  those  speak- 
ing the  language ;  although  it  must  have  somewhere 
lived  on  upon  the  lips  of  men.  Thus,  for  instance, 
since  the  Californian  and  Australian  discoveries  of 
gold,  we  hear  often  of  a  *  nugget'  of  gold ;  being  a 
lump  of  the  pure  metal ;  and  there  has  been  some  dis- 
cussion whether  the  word  has  been  born  for  the  pres- 
ent necessity,  or  whether  it  be  a  recent  malformation 
of  '  ingot.'  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  it  is  neither 
one  nor  the  other.  I  would  not  indeed  affirm  that  it 
may  not  be  a  popular  recasting  of  '  ingot ;'  but  only 
that  it  is  not  a  recent  one  ;  for  '  nugget'  very  nearly 
in  its  present  form,  occurs  in  our  elder  writers,  being 
spelt  '  niggot'  by  them.f  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  this  is  the  same  word ;  all  the  consonants,  which 
are  generally  the  stamina  of  a  word,  being  the  same ; 

*  Preface  to  Troilus  and  Cressida.  In  justice  to  Dryden,  and  lest 
it  should  be  said  that  he  had  spoken  poetic  blasphemy,  it  ouo:ht  not 
to  be  forgotten  that  '  pestered'  had  not  in  his  time  at  all  so  offensive 
a  sense  as  it  would  have  now.  It  meant  no  more  than  inconveniently 
crowded     thus  Milton  :  "  fJonfined  and  pestered  in  this  pinfold  here." 

t  Thus  in  North's  Plutarch,  p.  499 :  "After  the  fire  was  quenched, 
they  found  in  niggots  of  gold  and  silver  mingled  together,  about  a 
thousand  talents;"  ani  again,  p.  323:  "There  was  brought  a  mar- 
vellous great  mass  of  treasure  in  niggots  of  gold." 


PROPER  NAMES   BECOME  WORDS.  81 

wliile  this  early  form  '  niggot'  makes  more  plausible 
th  ir  suggestion  that  'nugget'  is  only  'ingot'  disguised, 
seeing  that  there  wants  nothing  but  the  very  common 
transposition  of  the  fi^st  two  letters  to  bring  that  out 
of  this. 

New  words  are  often  formed  from  the  names  of  per- 
sons, actual  or  mythical.  Some  one  has  observed  how 
interesting  would  be  a  complete  collection,  or  a  col- 
lection approaching  to  completeness,  in  any  language 
of  the  names  of  persons  which  have  afterward  become 
names  of  things,  from  nomina  appellativa  have  become- 
nomina  realia.  Let  me,  without  confining  myself  to 
those  of  more  recent  introduction,  endeavor  to  enu- 
merate as  many  as  I  can  remember  of  the  words  which 
have  by  this  method  been  introduced  into  our  lan- 
guage. To  begin  with  mythical  antiquity  —  the  Chi- 
maera  has  given  us  '  chimerical,'  Hermes  '  hermetic,' 
Tantalus  '  to  tantalize,'  Hercules  '  herculean,'  Yulcan 
'  volcano'  and  '  volcanic,'  and  Daedalus  '  dedal,'  if  this 
word  may  on  Spenser's  and  Shelley's  authority  be 
allowed.  Gordius,  the  Phrygian  king  who  tied  that 
famous  '  gordian'  knot  which  Alexander  cut,  will  sup- 
ply a  natural  transition  from  mythical  to  historical. 
Here  Mausolus,  a  king  of  Caria,  has  left  us  '  mauso- 
leum,' Academus  '  academy,'  Epicurus  '  epicure,'  Philip 
of  Macedon  a  '  philippic,'  being  such  a  discourse  as 
Demosthenes  once  launched  against  the  enemy  of 
Greece,  and  Cicero  '  cicerone.'  Mithridates,  who  had 
made  himself  poison-proof,  gave  us  the  now-forgotten 
word  '  mithridate,'  for  antidote ;  as  from  Hippocrates 
we  derived  '  hipocras'  or  '  ypocras,'  a  word  often  oc- 
curring in  our  early  poets,  being  a  wine  supposed  to 
be  mingled  according  to  his  receipt.     Gentius,  a  king 

4* 


82  GAINS   OF   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

of  Illjria,  gave  his  name  to  the  plant '  gentian,'  having 
been  the  first  to  discover  its  virtues.  A  grammar 
used  to  be  called  a  '  donat'  or  '  donet'  (Chaucer), 
from  Donatus,  a  famous  granyiiarian.  Lazarus,  per- 
haps an  actual  person,  has  given  us  '  lazar'  and  '  laza- 
retto ;'  Simon  Magus  '  simony  ;'  Mahomet  a  '  maumet' 
or  '  mammet,'  meaning  an  idol ;  and  '  dunce'  is  from 
Duns  Scotus.  To  come  to  more  modern  times,  and 
not  pausing  at  Ben  Johnson's  '  chaucerisms,'  Bishop 
Hall's  *  scoganisms,'  from  Scogan,  Edward  lY.'s  jester, 
or  his  '  aretinisms,'  from  an  infamous  writer,  "  a  pois- 
onous Italian  ribald,"  as  Gabriel  Harvey  calls  him, 
named  Aretine ;  these  being  probably  not  intended  even 
by  their  authors  to  endure  ;  a  Roman  cobbler  named 
Pasquin  has  given  us  the  '  pasquil'  or  '  pasquinade  ;' 
'  patch'  in  the  sense  of  fool,  and  often  so  used  by 
Shakespeare,  was  originally  the  proper  name  of  a 
favorite  fool  of  Cardinal  Wolsey's ;  Colonel  Negus 
in  Queen  Anne's  time  first  mixed  the  beverage  which 
goes  by  his  name  ;  Lord  Orrery  was  the  first  for  whom 
an  '  orrery'  was  constructed ;  and  Lord  Spencer  first 
wore,  or  at  first  brought  into  fashion,  a  *  spencer.' 
Dahl,  a  Swede,  introduced  the  cultivation  of  the 
'  dahlia,'  and  M.  Tabinet,  a  French  protestant  refugee, 
the  making  of  the  stufi"  called  '  tabinet'  in  Dublin. 
The  '  tontine'  was  conceived  by  an  Italian  named 
Tonti;  and  another  Italian,  Galvani,  first  noted  the 
phenomena  of  galvanism.  '  Martinet,'  '  mackintosh,' 
'  doyly,' '  brougham,' '  to  macadamize,'  '  to  burke,'  are 
all  names  of  persons  or  formed  from  persons,  and  then 
transferred  to  things,  on  the  score  of  some  connection 
existing  between  the  one  and  other.* 

*  Several  of  these  we  have  in  common  with  the  French ;  of  their 
own  they  have  *  sardanapalisme,'  any  piece  of  profuse  luxury,  from 


PROPER   NAMES   BECOME   WORDS.  83 

Again  the  names  of  popular  characters  in  literature, 
such  as  have  taken  strong  hold  on  the  national  mind, 
give  birth  to  a  number  of  new  words.  Thus  from 
Ilomer  we  have  '  mentor'  for  a  monitor  ;  '  stentorian' 
for  loud-voiced  ;  and  inasmuch  as  with  all  of  Hector's 
nobleness  there  is  a  certain  amount  of  big  talking 
about  him,  he  has  given  us  '  to  hector  ;'*  while  the 
medieval  romances  about  the  siege  of  Troy  ascribe  to 
Panda rus  that  shameful  ministry  out  of  which  his  name 
has  passed  into  the  words  '  to  pandar'  and  '  pandar- 
ism.'  '  Rodomontade'  is  from  Rodomont,  a  blustering 
and  boasting  hero  of  Boiardo,  adopted  by  Ariosto ; 
'  thrasonical'  from  Thraso,  the  braggart  in  the  Latin 
comedies.  Cervantes  has  given  us  '  quixotic  ;'  Swift 
'  lilliputian ;'  to  Moliere  the  French  language  owes 
'  tartuffe'  and  '  tartuflferie.'  '  Reynard,'  too,  which 
with  us  is  a  duplicate  for  fox,  while  in  the  French 
'  renard'  has  quite  excluded  the  older  '  volpils,'  was 

Sardanapalus  ;  while  for  '  lambiner/  to  dally  or  loiter  over  a  task,  they 
are  indebted  to  Denis  Lambin,  a  worthy  Greek  scholar  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  whom  his  adversaries  accused  of  sluggish  movement  and 
wearisome  difFuseness  in  style.  Every  reader  of  Paschal's  Provincial 
Letters  will  remember  Escobar,  the  great  casuist  among  the  Jesuits, 
whose  convenient  subterfuges  for  the  relaxation  of  the  moral  law  have 
there  been  made  famous.  To  the  notoriety  which  he  thus  acquired, 
he  owes  his  introduction  into  the  French  language  ;  where  '  escobarder' 
is  used  in  the  sense  of  to  equivocate,  and  *  escobarderie'  of  subterfuge 
or  equivocation.  The  name  of  an  unpopular  minister  of  finance, 
M.  de  Silhouette,  unpopular  because  he  sought  to  cut  down  unneces- 
sary expenses  in  the  state,  was  applied  to  whatever  was  cheap,  and, 
as  was  implied,  unduly  economical.  It  has  survived  in  the  black  out- 
line portrait  which  is  now  called  a  *  silhouette.'  (Sismondi,  Histoire 
des  Franfais,  tom.  xix.,  pp.  94,  95.)  The  'mansardc'  roof  is  derived 
from  Fr.  Mansart,  the  name  of  the  architect  who  introduced  it.  I 
need  hardly  add  'guillotine.' 

*  See  Col.  Mure,  iMtiguage  and  Literature  of  Ancient  Greece,  vol.  i, 
p.  350. 


84  GAINS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

originally  not  the  name  of  a  kind,  but  the  proper  name 
of  the  fox-hero,  the  vulpine  Ulysses,  in  that  famous 
beast-epic  of  the  middle  ages,  Reineke  Fuchs ;  the 
immense  popularity  of  which  we  gather  from  many 
evidences,  from  none  more  clearly  than  from  this. 
*  Chanticleer'  is  in  like  manner  the  proper  name  of 
the  cock,  and  '  Bruin'  of  the  bear  in  the  same  poem.* 
These  have  not  made  fortune  to  the  same  extent  of 
actually  putting  out  in  any  language  the  names  which 
before  existed,  but  still  have  become  quite  familiar  to 
us  all. 

^  ■  We  must  not  count  as  new  words  properly  so  called, 
jalthough  they  may  delay  us  for  a  minute,  those  comic 
words,  most  often  comic  combinations  formed  at  will, 
and  sometimes  of  enormous  length,  in  which,  as  plays 
and  displays  of  power,  great  writers,  ancient  and 
modern,  have  delighted.  These  for  the  most  part  are 
meant  to  do  service  for  the  moment,  and  then  to  pass 
away.  The  inventors  of  them  had  themselves  no  in- 
tention of  fastening  them  permanently  on  the  lan- 
guage. Thus  among  the  Greeks,  Aristophanes  coined 
fAsXXovjxjotw,  to  loiter  like  Nicias,  with  allusion  to  the 
delays  with  which  this  prudent  commander  sought  to 
put  off  the  disastrous  Sicilian  expedition,  with  not  a 
few  others  familiar  to  every  scholar.  The  humor  of 
them  sometimes  consists  in  their  enormous  length,  as 
in  the  dii(piitTo\siJ.o'n'r,Sy](iirT^aToc;  of  Eupolis  ;  sometimes 
in  their  mingled  observance  and  transgression  of  the 
laws  of  the  language,  as  in  the  '  oculissimus'  of  Plau- 
tus,  a  comic  superlative  of  '  oculus ;'  as  in  the  '  do- 
sones,'  '  dabones,'  which  in  Greek  and  medieval  Latin 
were  names  given  to  those,  who  were  ever  promising, 

*  See  Genin,  Des  Variations  du  Langage  Frangais,  p,  12. 


ORIGIN  OP  CHOUSE.  85 

ever  raying,  "  I  will  give,"  but  never  performing  their 
promise.  Plautus,  with  his  exuberant  wit,  and  exult- 
ing in  his  mastery  and  command  of  the  Latin  language, 
will  compose  four  or  five  lines  consisting  entirely  of 
comic  combinations  tlirown  oif  for  the  occasion.*  Of 
the  same  character  is  Butler's  '  cynarctomachy,'  or 
battle  of  a  dog  and  bear.  Nor  do  I  suppose  that 
Fuller,  when  he  used  '  to  avunculize,'  to  imitate  or 
follow  in  the  steps  of  one's  uncle,  or  Cowper,  when 
he  suggested  '  extraforaneous'  for  out  of  doors,  in  the 
least  intended  them  as  lasting  additions  to  the  lan- 
guage. 

Sometimes  a  word  springs  up  in  a  very  curious  way ; 
here  is  one,  not  having,  I  suppose,  any  great  currency 
except  among  schoolboys ;  yet  being  no  invention  of 
theirs,  but  a  genuine  English  word,  though  of  some- 
what late  birth  in  the  language,  I  mean  '  to  chouse.' 
It  has  a  singular  origin.  The  w^ord  is,  as  I  have  men- 
tioned already,  a  Turkish  one,  and  signifies  '  interpre- 
ter.' Such  an  interpreter  or  '  chiaous'  (written  '  chaus' 
in  Hackluyt,  '  chiaus'  in  Massinger),  being  attached 
to  the  Turkish  embassy  in  England,  committed  in  the 
year  1609  an  enormous  fraud  on  the  Turkish  and 
Persian  merchants  resident  in  London.  He  succeeded 
in  cheating  them  of  a  sum  amounting  to  four  thousand 
pounds  sterling  —  a  sum  very  much  greater  at  that 
day  than  at  the  present.  From  the  vast  dimensions 
of  the  fraud,  and  the  notoriety  which  attended  it,  any 
one  who  cheated  or  defrauded  was  said  '  to  chiaous,' 

*  Persa,  iv.  6,  20-23.  At  the  same  time  these  words  may  be  earn- 
est enough;  such  was  the  t\ay^i(TT6Tef) yg  of  St.  Paul  (Ephes.  iii.  8); 
just  as  in  the  Middle  Ages  some  did  not  account  it  s^ufficient  to  call 
themselves  "frati-es  minores,  minimi,  postrcmi,"  but  coined  'postre- 
missimi/  to  express  the  depth  of  their  "voluntary  humility/' 


86  GAINS   OP   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

'  chause,'  or  '  cliouse ;'  to  do,  that  is,  as  this  '  chiaous' 
had  done.* 

There  is  another  very  fruitful  source  of  new  words 
in  a  language,  or  rather  perhaps  another  way  in  which 
it  increases  its  vocabulary,  for  a  question  might  arise 
whether  the  words  thus  produced  ought  to  be  called 
new.  I  mean  through  the  splitting  of  single  words 
into  two  or  even  more.  The  impulse  and  suggestion 
to  this  is  in  general  first  given  by  varieties  in  pronun- 
ciation, which  come  gradually  to  be  represented  by 
varieties  in  spelling  ;  but  the  result  very  often  is,  that 
what  at  first  were  only  precarious  and  arbitrary  dif- 
ferences in  this,  come  in  the  end  to  be  regarded  as 
entirely  different  words  •:  they  detach  themselves  from 
one  another,  not  again  to  reunite ;  just  as  accidental 
varieties  in  fruits  or  flowers,  produced  at  hazard,  have 
yet  permanently  separated  off,  and  settled  into  differ- 
ent kinds.  They  have  each  its  own  distinct  domain 
of  meaning,  as  by  general  agreement  assigned  to  it ; 
dividing  the  inheritance  between  them,  which  hitherto 
they  held  in  common.  No  one  who  has  not  had  his 
attention  called  to  this  matter,  who  has  not  watched 
and  catalogued  tliese  words  as  they  have  come  under 
his  notice,  would  at  all  believe  how  numerous  they 
are. 

Sometimes  as  the  accent  is  placed  on  one  syllable 
of  a  word  or  another,  it  comes  to  have  different  sig- 

*  It  is  curious  that  a  correspondent  of  Skinner  (Etyiiiologican,  1671), 
although  quite  ignorant  of  this  stor}',  and,  indeed,  wholly  astray  in  his 
application,  had  suggested  that  'chouse'  might  be  thus  connected  with 
the  Turkish  'chiaus.'  I  believe  GifFord,  in  his  edition  of  Ben  Jon- 
son,  was  the  first  to  clear  up  the  matter.  To  this  he  was  naturally 
led  by  a  passage  in  TTie  Alchemist,  act  i.,  sc.  i.,  which  put  him  on  the 
right  track  for  the  discovery. 


DIFFERENT   SPELLING   OF   WORDS.  87 

nincations,  and  those  so  distinctly  marked,  that  it 
may  be  considered  out  of  one  word  to  have  grown 
into  two.  Examples  of  this  are  the  following :  '  di- 
vers' and  '  diverse  ;'  'conjure'  and  '  conjure  ;'  '  antic' 
and  '  antique  ;'  '  human'  and  '  humane  ;'  '  gc'ntle'  and 
'  gent^'cl ;'  *  custom'  and  '  costume  ;'  '  essay'  and  '  as- 
say ;'  '  property'  and  '  propriety.'  Or,  again,  a  word 
is  pronounced  with  a  full  sound  of  its  syllables,  or 
somewhat  more  shortly  :  '  thus,  '  spirit'  and  '  sprite  ;* 
*  blossom'  and  '  bloom ;'  '  piety'  and  '  pity  ;'  '  courtesy' 
and  '  curtsey  ;'  '  nourish'  and  '  nurse  ;'  '  personality' 
and  '  personalty  ;'  '  fantasy'  and  '  fancy  ;'  '  triumph' 
and  '  trump'  (the  winning  card*)  ;  '  happily'  and  '  hap- 
ly ;' '  wagon'  and  '  wain  ;' '  ordinance'  and  '  ordnance  ;' 
'  ghallop'  and  '  sloop  ;'  *  brabble'  and  '  brawl ;'  '  syrup' 
and  '  shrub ;'  '  balsam'  and  '  balm ;' '  eremite'  and  '  her- 
mit ;'  '  nighest'  and  '  next ;'  '  poesy'  and  '  posy ;'  '  fra- 
gile' and  '  frail ;'  '  achievement'  and  '  hatchment ;' 
'manoeuvre'  and  'manure;'  —  or  with  the  dropping 
of  the  first  syllable  :  '  history'  and  '  story  ;'  '  etiquette' 
and  '  ticket ;'  '  escheat'  and  '  cheat ;'  '  estate'  and 
'  state  ;'  —  or  with  a  dropping  of  the  last  syllable,  as 
'Brittany'  and  'Britain;'  'crony'  and  'crone;'  —  or 
without  losing  a  syllable,  with  more  or  less  stress  laid 
on  the  close  :  '  regiment'  and  '  regimen  ;'  '  corpse'  and 
'  corps  ;'  '  bite'  and  '  bit ;'  '  white'  and  '  whit ;'  '  sire' 
and  '  sir  ;'  '  land'  or  '  laund'  and  '  laun  ;'  '  gulph'  and 
'  gulp  ;'  '  launch'  and  '  lance  ;'  '  wealth'  and  '  weal ;' 
'  stripe'  and  '  strip  ;'  '  borne'  and  '  born  ;'  '  clothes'  and 

*  If  there  were  any  doubt  about  this  matter,  which  indeed  there  is 
not,  a  reference  to  Latimer's  famous  Sermon  on  Cards  would  abun- 
dantly remove  it,  where  *  triumph'  and  *  trump'  are  interchangeably 
used. 


88       GAINS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

*  cloths  ;' — or  a  slight  internal  vowel  change  finds 
place,  as  between  '  dent'  and  '  dint ;'  '  rant'  and  '  rent' 
(a  ranting  actor  tears  or  rends  a  passion  to  tatters)  ; 
'  creak'  and  '  croak  ;'  '  weald'  and  '  wold  ;'  '  float'  and 

*  fleet ;'    ^  sleek'   and    '  slick  ;'    '  sheen'    and   '  shine  ;' 

*  shriek'  and  *  shrike  ;'  '  pick'  and  '  peck ;'  '  drip'  and 

*  drop  ;'  '  wreathe'  and  '  writhe  ;'  '  spear'  and  '  spire' 
(the  least  spire  of  grass,  South)  ;  *  trist'  and  '  trust ;' 
'  band,'  '  bend,'  and  'bond;'  'spike'  and  'spoke;' 
'  cope,'  '  cape,-'  and  '  cap  ;'  '  tip'  and  '  top  ;'  '  tamper' 
and  '  temper  ;'  '  gargle'  and  '  gurgle  ;'  '  snake'  and 
'  sneak'  (both  crawl)  ;  '  deal'  and  '  dole  ;'  '  sip,'  '  sop,' 
'  soup,'  and  '  sup  ;'  '  tetchy'  and  '  touchy  ;'  '  neat'  and 
'  nett ;'  '  stud'  and  '  steed  ;'  '  then'  and  '  than  ;'  '  grits' 
and  '  grouts  ;'  '  spirt'  and  '  sprout ;'  '  cure'  and  '  care  ;' 

*  prune'  and  '  preen  ;'  '  mister'  and  '  master  ;'  '  allay' 
and  '  alloy  ;'  '  ghostly'  and  '  ghastly  ;'  '  person'  and 
'  parson  ;'  '  cleft'  and  '  clift,'  now  written  '  cliff;'  '  trav- 
el' and  '  travail ;'  '  truth'  and  '  troth  ;'  '  pennon'  and 

*  pinion  ;'  '  quail'  and  '  quell ;'  '  quell'  and  '  kill ;' 
'  metal'  and  '  mettle  ;'  '  chagrin'  and  '  shagreen  ;'  '  can' 
and  '  ken  ;'  '  Francis'  and  '  Frances  ;'*  '  chivalry'  and 
'  cavalry  ;'  '  oaf  and  '  elf ;'  '  lose'  and  '  loose.'  Some- 
times the  difference  is  mainly  or  entirely  in  the  initial 
consonant,  as  between '  phial'  and  '  vial ;'  '  pother'  and 
'  bother  ;'  '  bursar'  and  '  purser  ;'  '  thrice'  and  '  trice  ;' 

*  chattel'  and  '  cattle  ;'  '  chant'  and  '  cant ;'  '  channel' 
and  '  kennel ;'  '  wise'  and  '  guise  ;'  '  quay'  and  '  key  ;' 
'  thrill,'  '  trill,'  and  '  drill  ;'-^or  in  the  consonants  in 

*  The  appropriating  of  Frances  to  women  and  Francis  to  men  is 
of  quite  modern  introduction ;  it  was  formerly  nearly  as  often  Sir 
Frances  Drake  as  Sir  Francis,  while  Fuller  {Hol^  State,  book  iv.,  ch. 
xiv.)  speaks  of  Francis  Brandon,  eldest  daughter  of  Charles  Brandon, 
duke  of  Suffolk  ;  and  sec  Ben  Jonson's  New  Inn,  act  ii.,  scene  i. 


DIFFERENT   SPELLING   OP   WORDS.  89 

the  middle  of  the  word,  as  between  '  cancer'  and  ^  can- 
ker ;'  *  nipple'  and  '  nibble;'  '  price'  and  '  prize  ;'  '  con- 
sort' and  '  concert ;'  —  or  there  is  a  change  in  both, 
as  between  '  pipe'  and  *  fife.' 

Or  a  word  is  spelt  now  with  a  final  /c,  and  now  with 
a  final  ch ;  out  of  this  variation  two  different  words 
have  been  formed — with,  it  may  be,  other  slight  dif- 
ferences superadded :  thus  is  it  with  'poke'  and 
'poach;'  '  dyke'  and  '  ditch  ;'  '  stink'  and  '  stench  ;' 
'  break'  and  '  breach,'  to  which  may  be  added  '  broach  ;* 
'  lace'  and  '  latch  ;'  '  lurk'  and  '  lurch  ;'  '  bank'  and 
'  bench  ;'  '  stark'  and  '  starch  ;'  '  wake'  and  '  watch.' 
So,  too,  t  and  d  are  easily  exchanged,  as  in  '  clod' 
and  '  clot ;'  '  vend'  and  '  vent ;'  '  brat'  and  '  brood  ;' 
'  sad'  and  •  set ;'  '  chart'  and  '  card.'  Or  there  has 
grown  up,  besides  the  rigorous  and  accurate  pronun- 
ciation of  a  word,  a  popular  as  well ;  and  this  in  the 
end  has  formed  itself  into  another  word :  thus  is  it 
with  '  housewife'  and  '  hussey  ;'  '  Egyptian'  and  '  gyp- 
sey  ;'  '  hanaper'  and  '  hamper ;'  '  puisne'  and  '  puny  ;* 
'  patron'  and  <  pattern ;'  '  spital'  (hospital)  and  '  spit- 
tle' (house  of  correction)  ;  '  accompt'  and  '  account ;' 
'  donjon'  and  '  dungeon  ;'  '  nestle'  and  '  nuzzle'  (now 
obsolete).  Other  changes  can  not  perhaps  be  reduced 
exactly  under  any  of  these  heads :  as  between  '  ounce' 
and  '  inch ;' '  errant'  and  '  arrant ;' '  slack'  and  '  slake ;' 
bow'  and  '  bough  ;'  '  dies'  and  '  dice'  (both  being  plu- 
rals of  '  die')  ;  '  plunge'  and  '  flounce  ;'  '  staff'  and 
'  stave ;'   '  benefit'  and  '  benefice.'*     I  do  not  know 

*  Were  there  need  of  provino;  that  these  both  lie  in  'beneficium/ 
which  there  is  not,  for  in  Wiclifs  translation  of  the  Bible  the  distinc- 
tion is  still  latent  (I  Tim.  vi.  2),  one  might  adduce  a  singularly  char- 
acteristic little  trait  of  papal  policy,  which  once  turned  upon  thy 


90  GAINS   OF   TilF.   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

whether  we  ought  to  add  to  these,  '  news'  and  '  noise,' 
which  some  tell  us  to  be  the  same  word ;  at  any  rate, 
the  identifying  of  them  is  instructive,  for  how  much 
news  is  but  noise,  and  passes  away  like  a  noise  before 
long  !  Or,  it  may  be,  the  difference  which  constitutes 
the  two  forms  of  the  word  into  two  words  is  in  the 
spelling  only,  and  of  a  character  to  be  appreciable 
only  by  the  eye,  escaping  altogether  the  ear :  thus  is 
it  with  '■  draft'  and  '  draught ;'  '  plain'  and  '  plane  ;' 
'  coign'  and  '  coin  ;'  '  flower'  and  '  flour  ;*  *  check'  and 

*  cheque  ;'  '  straight'  and  '  strait ;'  '  ton'  and  '  tun  ;' 
'  road'  and  '  rode  ;'  '  throw'  and  '  throe  ;'  '  wrack'  and 
^  rack  ;'    '  gait'    and   '  gate  ;'    '  hoard'    and   '  horde  ;' 

*  knoll'  and  '  noil ;'  '  chord'  and  '  cord  ;'  '  drachm' 
and  '  dram  ;'  '  sergeant'  and  '  serjeant ;'  '  mask'  and 

*  masque  ;'  '  villain'  and  '  villein.' 

Now,  if  you  will  follow  up  these  instances,  you  will 
find,  I  believe,  in  every  case  that  there  has  attached 
itself  to  the  different  forms  of  the  words  a  modifica- 
tion of  meaning  more  or  less  sensible,  that  each  has 
won  for  itself  an  independent  sphere  of  meaning,  in 

double  use  of  this  word.  Pope  Adrian  IV.,  writing  to  the  emperor 
Frederick  I.  to  complain  of  certain  conduct  of  his,  reminded  the  em- 
peror that  he  had  placed  the  imperial  crown  upon  his  head,  and  would 
willingly  have  conferred  even  greater  '  beneficia*  upon  him  than  this. 
Had  the  word  been  allowed  to  pass,  it  would  no  doubt  have  been 
afterward  appealed  to  as  an  admission  on  the  part  of  the  great  empe- 
ror that  he  held  the  empire  as  a  feud  or  fief  (for  '  beneficium^  was  then 
the  technical  word  for  this,  though  the  meaning  has  much  narrowed 
since)  from  the  pope  —  the  very  point  in  dispute  between  them.  The 
word  was  indignantly  repelled  by  the  emperor  and  the  whole  German 
nation ;  whereupon  the  pope  appealed  to  the  etymology,  that  '  benefi- 
cium'  was  but  '  bonum  factum,'  and  had  the  meanness  to  protest  that 
he  meant  no  more  than  to  remind  the  emperor  of  the  '  benefits'  which 
he  had  done  him,  and  which  he  would  have  willingly  multiplied  still 
more. 


DIVERS,   DIVERSE,    ETC.  91 

which  it,  and  it  only,  moves.  For  take  a  few  in- 
stances in  proof.  '  Divers'  implies  difference  only, 
but  '  diverse'  difference  with  opposition ;  thus,  the 
several  evangelists  narrate  the  same  events  in  '  divers' 
manners,  but  not  in  *  diverse.'  '  Antique'  is  ancient, 
but  'antic'  is  now  the  ancient  regarded  as  overlived, 
out  of  date,  and  so  in  our  days  grotesque,  ridiculous ; 
and  then,  with  a  dropping  of  the  reference  to  age,  the 
grotesque,  the  ridiculous  alone.  '  Human'  is  what  every  * 
man  is,  '  humane'  is  what  every  man  ought  to  be ;  for 
Johnson's  suggestion  that '  humane'  is  from  the  French 
feminine  '  humaine,'  and  '  human'  from  the  masculine, 
can  not  for  an  instant  be  admitted.  '  Ingenious'  ex- 
presses a  mental,  '  ingenuous'  a  moral,  excellence.  A 
gardener  'prunes'  or  trims  his  trees  —  properly,  in- 
deed, his  vines  alone  (^provig-nerj ;  birds  '  preen'  or 
trim  their  feathers.  We  '  allay'  wine  with  water ;  we 
'  alloy'  gold  with  platina.  '  Bloom'  is  a  finer  and 
more  delicate  efflorescence  even  than  '  blossom  ;'  thus 
the  '  bloom,'  but  not  the  '  blossom,'  of  the  cheek.  It 
is  now  always  '  clots'  of  blood  and  '  clods'  of  earth ; 
a  '  float'  of  timber,  and  a  '  fleet'  of  ships  ;'  men  '  vend' 
wares,  and  '  vent'  complaints.  A  '  curtsey'  is  one, 
and  that  merely  an  external,  manifestation  of  '  cour- 
tesy.' '  Gambling'  may  be,  as  with  a  fearful  irony  it 
is  called,  play^  but  it  is  nearly  as  distant  from  '  gam- 
bolling' as  hell  is  from  heaven.  Nor  would  it  be 
hard,  in  every  or  almost  every  other  of  the  words 
which  I  have  instanced,  as  in  others  of  like  kind  which 
no  doubt  might  be  added  to  them,  to  trace  a  distinc- 
tion of  meaning  which  has  made  itself  more  or  less 
strongly  felt.* 

*  The  same  happens  in  other  languages.     Thus,  in  Greek,  '  dvaQti^^ 
and  '  a»arij/ja'  both  signify  that  which  is  devoted,  though  in  very  dif 


92       GAINS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

But  my  subject  is  inexhaustible.  It  has  no  limits 
except  those,  which  indeed  may  be  often  narrow 
enough,  imposed  by  my  own  ignorance  on  the  one 
side,  and  on  the  other  by  the  necessity  of  consulting 
your  patience,  and  of  only  choosing  such  matter  as 
will  admit  a  popular  setting  forth.  These  necessities, 
however,  bid  me  to  pause,  and  suggest  that  I  should 
not  look  round  for  other  quarters  whence  accessions 
of  new  words  are  derived.  Doubtless  I  should  not 
be  long  without  finding  many  such.  I  must  satisfy 
myself  for  the  rest  with  a  very  brief  consideration  of 
the  motives  w^hich,  as  they  have  been,  are  still  at  work 
among  us,  inducing  us  to  seek  for  these  augmentations 
of  our  vocabulary. 

And  first,  the  desire  of  greater  clearness  is  a  fre- 
quent motive  and  inducement  to  this.  It  has  been 
well  and  truly  said  :  "  Every  new  term,  expressing  a 
fact  or  a  diflerence  not  precisely  or  adequately  ex- 
pressed by  any  other  word  in  the  same  language,  is  a 


ferent  senses,  to  the  gods  ;  '  dapaog,*  boldness,  and  *  Opacx;,*  temerity, 
are  only  d liferent  spellings  of  one  and  the  same  word  ;  not  otherwise 
is  it  with  ypiTTOi  and  yP^^"^>  ^^"f  ^^^  rjOos:  while  6,3i\di  and  d/?(jXr)5, 
aopos  and  acjpos,  are  probably  the  same  words.  So,  too,  in  Latin, 
'penna'  and  'pinna'  differ  only  in  form,  and  signify  alike  a  'wing:* 
while  yet  in  practice  *  penna'  has  come  to  be  used  for  the  wing  of  a 
bird,  'pinna'  (the  diminutive  of  which,  ' pinnaculum,'  has  given  us 
'pinnacle')  for  that  of  a  building.  So  is  it  with  'Thrax'  a  Thracian, 
and  '  Threx' a  gladiator;  with  'codex'  and  'caudex;'  'providens' 
and  'prudens;'  'celeber'and  'creber;'  'infacetus'  and  'inficetus;' 
'  providentia'  and  *  provincia ;'  *  columen'  and  '  culmen  ;'  '  coitus'  and 
coetus;'  'tegriraonia'  and  'asrumna;'  'Lucina'  and  'luna;'  'navita' 
and  '  nauta  :'  in  German,  with  *  rechtlich'  and  '  redlich  ;'  '  schlecht' 
and  '  schlicht ;'  '  ahnden'  and  *  ahnen ;'  '  biegsam'  and  '  beugsajn  ;* 
'fursehung' and  'vorsehung:'  in  French,  with  'harnois,' the  armor 
or  '  harness'  of  a  soldier,  '  harnais'  of  a  horse :  in  Spanish,  with  '  fray 
and  'frey.' 


REASONS   FOR   SEEKING   NEW   WORDS.  93 

new  organ  of  thought  for  the  mind  that  has  learned 
it."*  Tlie  limits  of  their  vocabulary  are  in  fact  for 
most  men  the  limits  of  their  knowledge ;  and  in  a 
great  degree  for  us  all.  Of  course,  I  do  not  affirm 
that  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to  have  our  mental 
conceptions  clearer  and  more  distinct  than  our  words  ; 
but  it  is  very  hard  to  have,  and  still  harder  to  keep, 
them  so.  And  therefore  it  is  that  men,  conscious  of 
this,  so  soon  as  ever  they  have  learned  to  distinguish 
in  their  minds,  seek  also  to  distinguish  in  their  words. 

The  desire  of  greater  explicitness,  the  sense  that  a 
word  covers  too  large  a  space  of  meaning,  is  the  fre- 
quent occasion  of  the  introduction  of  another,  which 
shall  relieve  it  of  a  portion  of  this.  Thus,  there  was 
a  time  when  '  witch'  was  applied  equally  to  male  and 
female  dealers  in  unlawful  magical  arts.  Simon 
Magus,  for  example,  and  Elymas  are  both  '  witches,' 
in  Wiclif 's  Neiv  Testament  (Acts  viii.  9 ;  xiii.  8), 
and  Fosthumus  in  Shakespeare's  Cymbeline :  but  when 
the  medieval  Latin, '  sortiarius,'  supplied  another  word, 
the  French  '  sorcicr,'  and  thus  our  English  '  sorcerer' 
(originally  "  the  caster  of  lots"),  then  '  witch'  grad- 
ually was  confined  to  the  hag,  or  female  practiser  of 
these  arts,  while  '  sorcerer'  was  applied  to  the  male. 

New  necessities,  new  evolutions  of  society  into  more 
complex  conditions,  evoke  new  words ;  which  come 
forth,  because  they  are  required  now;  but  did  not 
formerly  exist,  because  they  were  not  required  in  the 
period  preceding.  For  example,  in  Greece  so  long 
as  the  poet  sang  his  own  verses,  '  singer'  (aoicJoc:)  suffi- 
ciently expressed  the  double  function  ;  such  a  '  singer' 
was  Homer,  and  such  he  descril)es  Demodocus,  the 

*  Coleridge,  Church  and  State,  p.  200. 


94  (JAINS   OF  THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

bard  of  the  Phseacians ;  that  double  function,  in  fact, 
not  being  in  his  time  contemplated  as  double,  but 
each  part  of  it  so  naturally  belonging  to  the  other, 
that  no  second  word  was  required.  When,  however, 
in  the  division  of  labor  one  made  the  verses  which 
another  chanted,  then  '  poet'  or  '  maker,'  a  word 
unknown  in  the  Homeric  age,  arose.  In  like  manner, 
when  '  physicians'  were  the  only  natural  philosophers, 
the  word  covered  this  meaning,  as  well  as  that  other 
which  it  still  retains ;  but  when  the  investigation  of 
nature  and  natural  causes  detached  itself  from  the 
art  of  healing,  became  an  independent  study  of  itself, 
the  name  '  physician'  remained  to  that  which  was  as 
the  stock  and  stem  of  the  art,  while  the  new  offshoot 
sought  out  a  new  name  for  itself. 

Another  motive  to  the  invention  of  new  words  is 
the  desire  thereby  to  cut  short  lengthy  explanations, 
tedious  circuits  of  language.  Science  is  often  a  great 
gainer  by  words,  so  far  as  they  can  be  called  such, 
which  say  at  a  stroke  what  it  would  have  taken  sen- 
tences otherwise  to  have  said.  Thus  '  isothermal'  is 
quite  of  modern  invention  ;  but  what  a  long  story  it 
would  be  to  tell  the  meaning  of  *  isothermal  lines,'  all 
which  is  saved  by  the  word.  We  have  long  had  the 
word  '  assimilation'  in  our  dictionaries  ; '  dissimilation' 
has  not  yet  found  its  way  into  them,  but  it  speedily 
will.  It  will  appear  first,  if  it  has  not  already  ap- 
peared, in  our  books  on  language.  I  express  myself 
with  this  confidence,  because  the  advance  of  philolo- 
gical inquiry  has  rendered  it  almost  a  matter  of  neces- 
sity that  we  should  possess  a  word  to  designate  a  cer- 
tain process,  and  no  other  word  would  designate  it  at 
all  so  well.    There  is  a  process  of '  assimilation'  going 


ASSIMILATION,   DISSIMILATION.  95 

Oil  very  extensively  in  language ;  it  occurs  where  the 
organs  of  speech  find  themselves  helped  by  changing 
a  letter  for  another  which  has  just  occurred,  or  will 
just  occur  in  a  word ;  thus  we  say  not  '  a^iance'  but 
'  a^iance,'  not  '  re/ioww,'  as  our  ancestors  did  when 
the  word  *  renommee'  was  first  naturalized,  but  *  re- 
nown.' But  there  is  also  another  opposite  process, 
where  some  letter  would  recur  too  often  for  euphony 
or  comfort  in  speaking,  if  the  strict  form  of  the  word 
were  too  closely  held  fast,  and  where  consequently 
this  letter  is  exchanged  for  some  other,  generally  for 
some  nearly  allied  ;  thus  in  Latin  '  mec?ic?ies'  (medius 
dies)  is  changed  into  ^  meridies  ;'  thus,  too,  the  Italians 
prefer  '  ve/ewo'  to  ^  veneno :'  and  we  '  cinnamon'  to 
'  cinnamow,'  which  was  the  earliest  form  of  the  word  ; 
and  this  process  of  making-  unlike,  requiring  a  word 
to  express  it,  will  create,  or  indeed  has  created,  the 
word  '  dissimilation,'  which  probably  will  in  due  time 
establish  itself  among  us  in  far  wider  than  its  primary 
use. 

*  Watershed'  has  only  recently  begun  to  appear  in 
books  of  geography  ;  and  yet  how  convenient  it  must 
be  admitted  to  be ;  how  much  more  so  than  "  line  of 
water  parting,"  which  it  has  succeeded  ;  meaning,  as 
I  need  hardly  tell  you  it  does,  not  merely  that  which 
sheds  the  waters,  but  that  which  divides  them  Q  was- 
serscheide');  and  being  applied  to  that  exact  ridge 
and  highest  line  in  a  mountain  region,  where  the 
waters  of  that  region  separate  off  and  divide,  some  to 
one  side  and  some  to  the  other;  as  in  the  Rocky 
Mountains  of  North  America  there  are  streams  rising 
within  very  few  miles  of  one  another,  which  flow  sev- 
crally  east  and  west,  and,  if  not  in  unbroken  course, 


:^  GAINS   OF   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

yet  as  affluents  to  larger  rivers,  fall  at  last  severally 
into  tlie  Pacific  and  Atlantic  oceans.  It  must  be  al 
lowed,  I  think,  that  not  merely  geographical  termi- 
nology, but  geography  itself,  had  a  benefactor  in  him 
who  first  endowed  it  with  so  expressive'and  compre- 
nensive  a  word,  bringing  before  us  a  fact  which  we 
should  scarcely  have  been  aware  of  without  it.  ,  ,  ,, 

There  is  another  word  which  I  have  just  employed, 
^  affluent,'  in  the  sense  of  a  stream  which  does  not 
flow  into  the  sea,  but  joins  a  larger  stream,  as  for 
instance,  the  Tsis  is  an  '  affluent'  of  the  Thames,  the 
Moselle  of  the  Rhine.  It  is  itself  an  example  in  the 
same  kind  of  that  whereof  I  have  been  speaking, 
having  been  only  recently  constituted  a  substantive, 
and  employed  in  this  sense,  while  yet  its  utility  is 
obvious.  '  Confluents'  would  perhaps  be  a  fitter  name, 
where  the  rivers,  like  the  Missouri  and  the  Mississippi, 
were  of  equal  or  nearly  equal  importance  up  to  the 
time  of  their  meeting. 

Again,  new  words  are  coined  out  of  the  necessity 
which  men  feel  of  filling  up  gaps  in  the  language. 
Thoughtful  men,  comparing  their  own  language  with 
that  of  other  nations,  become  conscious  of  deficiencies, 
of  important  matters  unexpressed  in  their  own,  and  with 
more  or  less  success  proceed  to  supply  the  deficiency. 
For  example,  that  too  common  sin,  the  undue  love  of 
self,  with  the  postponing  of  the  interests  of  all  others 
to  our  own,  had  for  a  long  time  no  word  to  express 
it  in  English.  Help  was  sought  from  the  Greek  and 
from  the  Latin.  '  Philauty'  ((piXauTi'a)  had  been  more 
than  once  attempted  by  our  scholars ;  but  found  no 
acceptance.  This  failing,  men  turned  to  the  Latin  ; 
one  writer  trying  to  supply  the  want  by  calling  the 


PHILAUTY,    SUICISM,   SELFISHNESS.  97 

man  a  ^  suist,'  as  one  s.  eking  his  own  things  (sua,) 
and  the  sin  itself,  '  suicism.'  The  gap,  however,  was 
not  really  filled  up,  till  some  of  the  Puritan  writers, 
drawing  on  our  Saxon,  devised  '  selfish'  and  '  selfish- 
ness,' words  which  to  us  seem  obvious  enough,  but 
which  yet  are  not  more  than  two  hundred  years  old.* 

*  A  passage  from  Hackett's  Life  of  Archbishop  Williams,  part  ii., 
p.  144,  marks  the  first  rise  of  this  word,  and  the  quarter  whence 
it  arose :  "  When  they  [the  presbyterians]  saw  that  he  was  not  selfish 
(it  is  a  word  of  their  own  new  mint),"  &c.  In  Whitlock's  Zootomia 
(1654)  there  is  another  indication  of  it  as  a  novelty,  p.  364  :  "  If  con- 
stancy may  be  tainted  with  this  selfishness  (to  use  our  new  wordings 
of  old  and  general  actings),"  It  is  he  who  in  his  striking  essay.  The 
Grand  Schismatic,  or  Suist  anatomized,  puts  forward  his  own  words, 
'suist'  and  'suicism,'  in  lieu  of  those  which  have  ultimately  been 
adopted.  *  Suicism,'  let  me  observe,  had  not  in  his  time  the  obvious 
objection  of  resembling  another  word  too  nearly,  and  being  liable  to 
be  confused  with  it;  for  'suicide'  did  not  then  exist  in  the  language, 
nor  indeed  till  some  twenty  years  later.  The  coming  up  of  *  suicide* 
is  marked  by  this  passage  in  Phillips'  New  World  of  Words,  1671, 
3d  edition;  "Nor  less  to  be  exploded  is  the  word  *  suicide,'  which 
may  as  well  seem  to  participate  of  sus  a  sow,  as  of  the  pronoun  sui." 

Let  me,  by  occasion  of  this  quotation,  urge  the  advantage  of  a  com- 
plete collection,  or  one  approaching  as  near  to  completeness  as  the 
industry  of  the  collectors  would  allow,  of  all  the  notices  in  our  litera- 
ture, which  mark,  and  would  serve  as  dates  for,  the  first  incoming  of 
nejjf  words  into  the  language.  These  notices  are  of  course  of  the  most 
various  kinds.  Sometimes  they  are  protests  and  remonstrances,  as 
that  just  quoted,  against  a  new  word's  introduction;  sometimes  they 
are  gratulations  at  the  same ;  while  many  hold  themselves  neuter  as 
to  approval  or  disapproval  and  merely  state,  or  allow  us  to  gather, 
the  fact  of  a  word's  recent  appearance.  There  is  a  very  considerable 
number  of  these  notices  which  I  desire,  in  Richardson's  Dictionary: 
thus  one  from  Lord  Bacon  under  'essay  ;'  from  Swift  under  *  banter;* 
from  Sir  Thomas  Elyot  under  '  mansuetude  ;'  from  Lord  Chesterfield 
under  'flirtation  ;'  from  Davics  and  Marlow's  Epigrams  under  'gull;* 
from  llogor  North  under  'sham'  (Appendix);  the  third  quotation  from 
Dryden  under  'mob;*  one  from  the  same  under  'philanthropy,'  and 
a;;ain  under  '  witticism,'  in  which  he  claims  the  authorship  of  the  word ; 
that  from  Evelyn  under  '  miss  ;'  and  from  Milton  under  '  demagogue.* 
There  are  also  notices  of  the  same  kind  in  Todd's  Johnson.     The  work, 

5 


98       GAINS  OP  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

Before  quitting  this  part  of  the  subject,  let  me  say 
a  few  words  in  conclusion  on  this  deliberate  introduc- 

however,  is  one  which  no  single  scholar  could  hope  to  accomplish, 
which  could  only  be  accomplished  by  many  lovers  of  their  native 
tongue  throwing  into  a  common  stock,  as  into  Notes  and  Queries,  the 
results  of  their  several  studies,  there  to  remain  treasured  up  for  the 
future  uses  of  lexicographers.  The  sources  from  which  these  illus- 
trative passages  might  be  gathered  can  not  beforehand  be  enumerated, 
inasmuch  as  it  is  difficult  to  say  in  what  unexpected  quarter  they 
would  not  sometimes  be  found,  although  some  of  these  sources  are 
obvious  enough.  As  a  very  slight  sample  of  what  might  be  done  in 
this  way  by  the  joint  contributions  of  many,  let  me  throw  together 
references  to  a  few  passages  of  the  kind  which  I  do  not  think  have 
found  their  way  into  any  of  our  dictionaries.  Thus  add  to  that  which 
Kichardson  has  quoted  on  *  banter,'  another  from  The  Tatler,  No.  230. 
On  '  plunder'  there  are  two  instructive  passages  in  Fuller's  Church 
History,  b.  xi.,  §  4,  33;  and  b.  ix.,  §  4;  and  one  in  Heylin's  Animad- 
versions thereupon,  p.  196.  On  'admiralty'  see  a  note  in  Harington's 
Ariosto,  book  xix.;  on  'maturity'  Sir  Thomas  Elyot's  Governor,  h.  i., 
c.  22 ;  and  on  '  industry'  the  same,  b.  i.,  c.  23 ;  on  '  neophyte'  a  notice 
in  Fulke's  Defence  of  the  English  Bible,  Parker  Society's  edition, 
p.  586 ;  and  on  'panorama,'  and  marking  its  recent  introduction  (it  is 
not  in  Johnson),  a  passage  in  Pegge's  Anecdotes  of  the  English  Lan- 
guage, first  published  in  1803,  but  my  reference  is  to  the  edition  of 
1814,  p.  306.  On  'accommodate,'  and  supplying  a  date  for  its  first 
coming  into  popular  use,  see  Shakespeare's  2  Henry  IV.  act  3,  sc.  2 ; 
on  'shrub,'  Junius'  Etymologicon,  s.  v.  'syrup;' on  'sentiment*  and 
*  cajole'  Skinner,  s.  vv.,  in  his  Etymologicon ;  and  on  '  opera'  Evelyn's 
Memoirs  and  Diary,  1827,  vol.  i.,  pp.  189,  190.  In  such  a  collection 
there  ought  to  be  included  those  passages  of  our  literature  which  sup- 
ply implicit  evidence  for  the  non-existence  of  a  word  up  to  a  certain 
moment.  It  may  be  said  that  it  is  difficult,  or  indeed  impossible,  to 
prove  a  negative  ;  and  yet  a  passage  like  the  following  from  Boling- 
broke  would  be  perfectly  decisive  that  up  to  and  at  the  time  when  it 
was  written,  the  word  '  isolated'  did  not  exist  in  our  language  :  "  The 
events  we  are  witnesses  of  in  the  course  of  the  longest  life,  appear  to 
us  very  often  original,  unprepared,  signal,  and  unrelative;  if  I  may 
use  such  a  Avord  for  want  of  a  better  in  English.  In  French  I  would 
say  isoles." — {Noies  and  Queries,  No.  226.) 

There  is  one  precaution  which,  let  me  observe,  would  be  necessary 
in  the  collecting,  or  rather  in  the  after  making  use,  of  these  statements 
—  for  I  think  the  passages  themselves,  even  when  erroneous,  ought 


NOTICES   01    NEW   WORDS.  99 

tion  of  words  to  supply  felt  omissions  in  a  language, 
and  the  limits  within  which  this  or  any  other  conscious 
interference  with  the  development  of  a  language  is 
desirable  or  possible.  By  the  time  that  a  people 
begin  to  meditate  upon  *their  language,  to  be  aware 
by  a  conscious  reflective  act  either  of  its  merits  or 
deficiencies,  by  far  the  greater  and  more  important 
part  of  its  work  is  done ;  it  is  fixed  in  respect  of  its 
structure  in  immutable  forms ;  the  region  in  which 
any  alteration  or  modification,  addition  to  it,  or  sub- 
traction from  it,  deliberately  devised  and  carried  out, 
may  be  possible,  is  very  limited  indeed.  Its  great 
laws  are  too  firmly  established  to  admit  of  this ;  so 
that  almost  nothing  can  be  taken  from  it,  which  it  has 
got ;  almost  nothing  added  to  it,  which  it  has  not  got. 
It  will  travel  indeed  in  certain  courses  of  change; 
but  it  would  be  as  easy  almost  to  alter  the  career  of 
a  planet  as  for  man  to  alter  these.  This  is  sometimes 
a  subject  of  regret  with  those  who  see  what  they  be- 
lieve manifest  defects  or  blemishes  in  their  language, 
and  such  as  appear  to  them  capable  of  remedy.  And 
yet  in  fact  this  is  well ;  since  for  once  that  these  re- 

not  the  less  to  be  noted  —  namely,  that  where  there  is  the  least  motive 
for  suspicion,  no  one's  affirmation  ouj^ht  to  be  accepted  simply  and 
at  once  as  to  the  novelty  of  a  word ;  for  all  here  are  liable  to  error. 
Thus,  more  than  once  a  word  which  Sir  Thomas  Elyot  indicates  as 
new  in  his  time,  *  mafj^nanimity'  for  example  ( The  Governor^  ii.  14),  is 
to  be  met  in  Chaucer.  When  Skinner  affirmed  of  '  sentiment*  that  it 
had  only  recently  obtained  the  rights  of  English  citizenship  from  the 
translaions  of  French  books,  he  was  altogether  mistaken,  this  word 
being  also  one  of  continual  recurrence  in  Chaucer.  An  intelligent 
coiTCspondent  gives  in  Notes  and  Queries,  No.  225,  a  useful  catalogue 
of  recent  neologies  in  our  speech,  which  yet  would  require  to  be  used 
with  caution,  for  there  are  at  least  half  a  dozen  in  the  list  which  havo 
not  the  smallest  right  to  be  so  considered. 


100  GAINS   OF  THE   ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

dressers  of  real  or  fancied  wrongs,  these  suppliers  of 
things  lacking,  would  have  mended,  we  may  be  toler- 
ably confident  than  ten  times,  yea,  a  hundred  times, 
they  would  have  marred ;  letting  go  that  which  it 
would  have  been  well  to  have  retained  ;  retaining  that 
which  by  a  necessary  law  the  language  now  lets  fall ; 
and  in  manifold  ways  interfering  with  the  processes 
of  natural  logic.  The  genius  of  a  language,  uncon- 
sciously presiding  over  all  its  transformations,  and 
conducting  them  to  a  definite  issue,  will  have  been  a 
far  truer,  far  safer  guide,  than  the  artificial  wit,  how- 
ever subtle,  of  any  single  man,  or  of  any  association 
of  men.  For  the  genius  of  a  language  is  the  utterance 
of  the  sense  and  inner  conviction  of  all  who  speak  it, 
as  to  what  it  ought  to  be,  and  the  means  by  which  it 
will  best  attain  its  objects ;  the  other  attempt  is  but 
that  of  a  few ;  and  while  a  pair  of  eyes,  or  two  or 
three  pairs  of  eyes  may  see  much,  millions  of  eyes  will 
certainly  see  more. 

In  the  forms  and  laws  of  a  language  any  interference 
such  as  that  which  I  have  supposed  is  impossible ;  it 
can  only  find  place  in  the  words.  Something,  indeed 
much,  may  here  be  done  by  wise  masters,  in  the  way 
of  rejecting  that  which  would  deform,  allowing  and 
adopting  that  which  will  strengthen  and  enrich. 
Those  who  would  purify  or  enrich  a  language,  so  long 
as  they  have  kept  within  this  their  proper  sphere,  have 
often  effected  much,  far  more  than  at  first  could  have 
seemed  possible.  The  history  of  the  German  language 
afi'ords  so  much  better  illustration  of  this  than  our 
own  would  do,  that  I  shall  make  no  scruple  in  seeking 
my  examples  there.  When  the  patriotic  Germans 
began  to  wake  up  to  a  consciousness  of  the  enormous 


GERMAN   PURISTS.  101 

encroachments  which  foreign  languages,  the  Latin  and 
French  above  all,  had  made  on  their  native  tongue, 
the  lodgments  which  they  had  therein  effected,  and 
the  danger  which  threatened  it,  namely,  that  it  should 
cease  to  be  German  at  all,  but  only  a  mingle-mangle, 
a  variegated  patchwork  of  many  languages,  without 
any  unity  or  inner  coherence  at  all,  various  societies 
were  instituted  among  them,  at  the  beginning  and 
during  the  course  of  the  seventeenth  century,  for  the 
recovering  of  what  was  lost  of  their  own,  for  the  ex- 
pelling of  that  which  had  intruded  ^rom  abroad  ;  and 
these  with  excellent  effect. 

But  more  effectual  than  these  societies  were  the 
efforts  of  single  men,  who  in  this  merited  well  of  their 
country.*  In  respect  of  words  which  are  now  entirely 
received  by  the  whole  nation,  it  is  often  possible  to 
designate  the  writers  who  first  substituted  them  for 
some  affected  Gallicism  or  unnecessary  Latinism.  Thus 
to  Lessing  his  fellow-countrymen  owe  the  substitution 
of  '  zartgefuhl'  for  '  delicatesse,'  of  *  empfindsamkeit' 
for  '  sentimentalitat,'  of  '  wesenheit'  for  '  essence.'  It 
was  Voss  (1786)  who  first  employed  '  alterthiimlicV 
for  '  antik.'  Wieland,  too,  was  the  author  or  reviver 
of  a  multitude  of  excellent  words,  for  which  often  he 
had  to  do  earnest  battle  at  the  first ;  such  were  '  selig- 
keit,'  '  anmuth,'  '  entziickung,'  '  festlich,'  '  entwirren,' 
with  many  more.  It  was  a  novelty  when  Biisching 
called  his  great  work  on  geography  ^  erdbeschreibung' 
instead  of  '  geographic  ;'  while  '  schnellpost'  instead 
of  '  diligence,'  '  zerrbild'  for  '  carricatur,'  are  also  of 

*  There  is  an  admirable  essay  by  Leibnitz  with  this  view  {Opera, 
vol.  vi.,  partii.,  pp.  6-51)  in  French  and  German,  with  this  title: 
Considerations  sur  la  Culture  et  la  Perfection  de  la  Langue  Allemande. 


102      GAINS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

recent  introduction.  In  regard  of '  worterbuch'  itself, 
J.  Grimm  tells  us  he  can  find  no  example  of  its  use 
dating  earlier  than  1719. 

Yet  at  the  same  time  it  must  be  acknowledged  that 
some  of  these  reformers  proceeded  with  more  zeal 
than  knowledge,  while  others  did  whatever  in  them 
lay  to  make  the  whole  movement  absurd  —  even  as 
there  ever  hang  on  the  skirts  of  a  noble  movement, 
be  it  in  literature,  or  politics,  or  higher  things  yet, 
those  who  contribute  their  all  to  bring  ridicule  and 
contempt  upon  it.  Thus,  in  the  reaction  against  for- 
eigners which  ensued,  an4  in  the  zeal  to  purify  the 
language  from  them,  some  went  to  such  extravagant 
excesses  as  to  desire  to  get  rid  of  '  testament,'  '  apos- 
tel,'  which  last  Campe  would  have  replaced  by  '  lehr- 
bote,'  with  other  words  like  these,  consecrated  by 
longest  use,  and  to  find  native  substitutes  in  their 
room ;  or  they  understood  so  little  what  foreign  words 
were,  or  how  to  draw  the  line  between  them  and  na- 
tiYjC,  that  they  would  fain  have  gotten  rid  of  '  vater,' 
'  mutter,'  '  wein,'  *  fenster,'  '  meister,'  'kelch;'*  the 
first  three  of  which  belong  to  the  German  language 
by  just  as  good  a  right  as  they  do  to  the  Latin  and 
the  Greek ;  while  the  otlier  three  have  been  natural- 
ized so  long,  that  to  propose  to  expel  them  now  would 
be  as  if,  having  passed  an  alien  act  for  the  banishment 
of  all  foreigners,  we  should  proceed  to  include  under 
that  name,  and  as  such  drive  forth  from  the  kingdom, 
the  descendants  of  the  French  protestants  who  found 
refuge  here  at  the  revocation  of  the  edict  of  Nantes, 
or  even  of  the  Flemings  who  settled  among  us  in  the 

*  Zur  Geschichte  und  Beurtheilung  der  Fremdworter  im  Deutschen, 
von  Aug.  Fuchs  :  Dessau,  1842,  pp.  85-91, 


GERMAN   PURISTS.  103 

time  of  our  Edwards.  One  notable  enthusiast  in  this 
line  proposed  to  create  an  entirely  new  nomenclature 
for  all  the  mythological  personages  of  the  Greek  and 
the  Roman  pantheon,  who,  one  would  think,  might 
have  been  allowed,  if  any,  to  retain  their  Greek  and 
Latin  names.  So  far,  however,  from  this,  they  were 
to  exchange  these  for  equivalent  German  titles  :  Cupid 
was  to  be  '  Lustkind,'  Flora  '  Bluminne,'  Aurora  '  Ro- 
thin  ;'  instead  of  Apollo,  Schoolboys  were  to  speak  of 
'  Singhold  ;'  instead  of  Pan,  of  '  Schaflieb  ;'  instead 
of  Jupiter,  of  '  Helfevater ;'  with  much  else  of  the 
same  kind.  Let  us  beware  (and  the  warning  extends 
a  great  deal  further  than  to  the  matter  in  hand)  of 
making  a  good  cause  ridiculous  by  our  manner  of  sup- 
porting it,  of  assuming  that  exaggerations  on  one  side 
can  only  be  redressed  by  exaggerations  as  great  upon 
the  other. 


104        DIMINUTIONS   OF   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 


LECTURE   III. 

DIMINUTIONS   OF   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

I  TOOK  occasion  to  observe,  at  the  commencement 
of  my  last  lecture,  that  it  is  the  essential  character 
of  a  living  language  to  be  in  flux  and  flow,  to  be  gain- 
ing and  losing  ;  the  vrords  which  constitute  it  as  little 
continuing  exactly  the  same,  or  in  the  same  relations 
to  one  another,  as  do  the  atoms  which  at  any  one 
moment  make  up  our  bodies  remain  for  ever  without 
alteration.  As  I  th6n  undertook  for  my  especial  sub- 
ject to  trace  some  of  the  acquisitions  which  our  own 
language  has  made,  I  shall  dedicate  the  present  to  a 
consideration  of  some  of  tlie  losses,  or  at  any  rate 
diminutions,  which  during  the  same  period  it  has  en- 
dured. It  will,  however,  be  expedient  here,  by  one 
or  two  preliminary  observations,  to  avert  any  possible 
misapprehensions  of  my  meaning. 

It  is  certain  that  all  languages  must,  or  at  least  all 
languages  do  in  the  end,  perish.  They  run  their  course ; 
not  all  at  the  same  rate,  for  the  tendency  to  change 
is  different  in  diff'erent  languages,  both  from  internal 
causes  (mechanism,  etc.),  and  also  from  causes  exter- 
nal to  the  language,  laid  in  the  varying  velocities  of 
social  progress  and  social  decline ;  but  so  it  is,  that 
whether  of  shorter  or  longer  life,  they  have  their 
youth,  their  manhood,  their  old  age,  their  decrepi- 


LANGUAGES   NOT  IMMORTAL.  105 

tude,  their  final  dissolution.  Not  indeed  that,  even 
when  this  last  hour  has  arrived,  they  disappear,  leav- 
ing no  traces  behind  tliem.  On  the  contrary,  out  of 
their  death  a  new  life  comes  forth  ;  they  pass  into 
new  forms,  the  materials  of  which  they  were  composed 
more  or  less  survive,  but  these  now  organized  in  new 
shapes  and  according  to  other  laws  of  life.  Thus,  for 
example,  the  Latin  perishes  as  a  living  language,  but 
a  great  part  of  the  words  that  composed  it  live  on  in 
the  four  daughter-languages,  French,  Italian,  Spanish, 
and  Portuguese  ;  not  a  few  in  our  own.  Still,  in  their 
own  proper  being,  languages  perish  and  pass  away ; 
no  nations,  that  is,  continue  to  speak  them  any  more. 
Seeing,  then,  that  they  thus  die,  they  must  have  had 
the  germs  of  death,  the  possibilities  of  decay,  in  them 
from  the  very  first. 

Nor  is  this  all ;  but  in  such  mighty,  strong-built 
fabrics  as  these,  the  causes  which  thus  bring  about 
their  final  dissolution  must  have  been  actually  at 
work  very  long  before  the  results  began  to  be  visible. 
Indeed,  very  often  it  is  with  them  as  with  states, 
which,  while  in  some  respects  they  are  knitting  and 
strengthening,  in  others  are  already  unfolding  the 
seeds  of  their  future  and,  it  may  be,  still  remote  over- 
throw. Equally  in  these  and  those,  in  states  and 
languages,  it  would  be  a  serious  mistake  to  assume 
that  all  up  to  a  certain  point  and  period  is  growth 
and  gain,  and  all  after,  decay  and  loss.  On  the  con- 
trary, there  are  long  periods  during  which  growth  in 
somo  directions  is  going  hand  in  hand  with  decay  in 
others ;  losses  in  one  kind  are  being  compensated,  or 
more  than  compensated,  by  gains  in  another ;  during 
which   a    language   changes,  but    only    as    the   bud 


106        DIMINUTIONS   OF  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

changes  into  the  flower,  and  the  flower  into  the  fruit. 
There  is,  indeed,  a  moment  when  the  growth  and 
gains  cease  to  constitute  any  longer  a  compensation 
for  the  losses  and  the  decay  ;  when  these  ever  become 
more,  those  ever  fewer ;  when  the  forces  of  disorgani- 
zation and  death  at  work  are  stronger  than  those  of 
life  and  order.  It  is  from  this  moment  the  decline 
of  a  language  may  properly  be  dated.  But  until  that 
crisis  and  turning  point  has  arrived,  we  may  be  quite 
justified  in  speaking  of  the  losses,  the  real  losses  of  a 
language,  without  in  the  least  thereby  implying  that 
the  period  of  its  commencing  degeneracy  has  begun ; 
it  may  yet  be  far  distant ;  and  therefore  when  I  dwell 
on  certain  losses  and  diminutions  which  our  own  has 
undergone,  or  is  undergoing,  you  will  not  conclude 
that  I  am  seeking  to  present  it  to  you  as  now  travel- 
ling the  downward  course  to  dissolution  and  death. 
This  is  very  far  from  my  intention.  In  some  respects 
it  is  losing,  but  in  others  gaining.  Nor  is  every- 
thing which  it  lets  go,  a  loss ;  for  this,  too,  the  part- 
ing with  a  word  in  which  there  is  no  true  help,  the 
dropping  of  a  cumbrous  or  superfluous  form,  may  it- 
self be  sometimes  a  most  real  gain.  It  is  undoubt- 
edly becoming  diff'erent  from  what  it  has  been ;  but 
only  diff'erent  in  that  it  is  passing  into  another  stage 
of  its  development ;  only  different,  as  the  fruit  is  dif- 
ferent from  the  flower,  and  the  flower  from  the  bud ; 
having  changed  its  merits,  but  not  having  renounced 
them  ;  possessing,  it  may  be,  less  of  beauty,  but  more 
of  usefulness  ;  not  serving  the  poet  so  well,  but  serving 
the  historian,  and  philosopher,  and  theologian,  better 
than  of  old. 

One  thing  more  let  me  say,  before  entering  on  the 


GAINS  AND  LOSSES  OP  LANGUAGE.      lOT 

special  details  of  my  subject.  It  is  this :  the  losses 
and  diminutions  which  a  languapje  endures  differ  in 
one  respect  from  its  gains  and  acquisitions  —  namely, 
that  they  are  of  tivo  kinds,  while  its  gains  are  only 
of  one.  Its  gains  are  only  in  words;  it  never  puts 
forth  in  the  course  of  its  later  evolution  a  new  power; 
it  never  makes  for  itself  a  new  case,  or  a  new  tense, 
or  a  new  comparative.  But  its  losses  are  both  in 
words  and  in  powers  —  in  words,  of  course,  but  in 
powers  also :  it  leaves  behind  it,  as  it  travels  onward, 
cases  which  it  once  possessed,  renounces  the  employ- 
ment of  tenses  which  it  once  used ;  is  content  with 
one  termination  for  both  masculine  and  feminine,  and 
so  on.  Nor  is  this  a  peculiar  feature  of  one  language, 
but  the  universal  law  of  all.  "  In  all  languages,"  as 
has  been  well  said,  "  there  is  a  constant  tendency  to 
relieve  themselves  of  that  precision  which  chooses  a 
fresh  symbol  for  every  shade  of  meaning,  to  lessen  the 
amount  of  nice  distinction,  and  detect  as  it  were  a 
royal  road  to  the  interchange  of  opinion."  For  ex- 
ample, a  vast  number  of  languages  had  at  an  early 
period  of  their  development,  besides  the  singular  and 
plural,  a  dual  number,  some  even  a  trinal,  which  they 
have  let  go  at  a  later.  But  what  I  mean  by  a  lan- 
guage renouncing  its  powers  will,  I  trust,  be  more 
clear  to  you  before  my  lecture  is  concluded.  I  just 
say  this  much  about  it  now,  to  explain  and  justify  a 
division  which  I  shall  make :  considering  first  the 
losses  of  the  English  language  in  the  region  of  words, 
and  then  in  the  region  of  powers. 

And  first,  there  is  going  forward  a  continual  extinc- 
tior  of  the  words  in  our  language  —  as,  indeed,  in  ev~ 


108        DIMINUTIONS   OF   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

ery  other.  When  I  speak  of  this  the  dying  out  of 
words,  I  do  not  allude  to  mere  tentative^  experimental 
words,  such  as  I  spoke  of  in  my  last  lecture  —  words 
offered  to  the  language,  but  not  accepted  by  it ;  I  re- 
fer rather  to  such  as  either  belonged  to  the  primitive 
stock  of  the  language,  or,  if  not  so,  which  had  been 
domiciled  in  it  long,  and  had  appeared  to  have  found 
a  lasting  home  in  it.  Thus,  not  a  few  pure  Anglo- 
Saxon  words  lived  on  into  the  formation  of  our  early 
English,  and  yet  have  since  dropped  out  of  our  vocab- 
ulary, while  their  places  have  been  filled  by  others. 
Not  to  mention  those  of  Chaucer  and  Wiclif,  which 
are  very  numerous,  many  have  lived  on  to  far  later 
periods,  and  yet  have  finally  given  way.  That  beau- 
tiful word  '  wanhope'  for  despair,  hope  which  has  so 
waned  that  now  there  is  an  entire  want  of  it,  was  in 
use  down  to  the  reign  of  Elizabeth ;  it  occurs  so  late 
as  in  the  poems  of  Gascoigne.*  That  not  very  grace- 
ful word  '  skinker'  for  '  cupbearer'  is  used  by  Shake- 
speare, and  lasted  to  Dryden's  times  and  beyond. 
Spenser  uses  often  '  to  welk'  (welken)  in  the  sense  of 
to  fade,  '  to  sty'  for  to  mount,  '  to  hery'  as  to  glorify 
or  praise,  '  to  halse'  as  to  embrace, '  teene'  as  vexa- 
tion or  grief:  Shakespeare  'to  tarre'  as  to  provoke, 
'  to  sperr'  as  to  enclose  or  bar  in ;  *  to  sag'  for  to 
droop,  or  hang  the  head  downward.     Holland  em- 


*  It  is  still  used  in  prose  as  late  as  the  age  of  Henry  VIII. ;  see  the 
State  Papers,  vol.  viii.,  p.  247.  It  was  the  latest  survivor  of  a  whole 
group  or  family  of  words  which  continued  much  longer  in  Scotland 
than  with  us,  of  which  some  perhaps  continue  there  still ;  these  are 
but  a  few  of  them  :  '  wanthrift'  for  extravagance  ;  '  wanluck,'  misfor- 
tune ;  '  wanlust/  languor ;  '  wanwit/  folly ;  '  wangrace,'  wickedness  • 
'wantrost'    Chaucer),  distrust. 


SAXON    WORDS  EXTINCT.  109 

ploys  '  geir'*  for  vulture  ("  vultures  or  geirs'^),  '  reise' 
for  journey,  '  friiiim'  for  lusty  or  strong;  and  iu  Sir 
Thomas  Urquhart  and  others  a  rogue  is  still  a  '  skel- 
lum.'  '  To  schimmcr'  occurs  in  Bishop  Hall ;  '  to 
tind,'  that  is,  to  kindle,  and  surviving  in  '  tinder,'  is 
used  by  Bishop  Sanderson ;  '  to  nimm,'  or  take,  as 
late  as  by  Fuller.  '  Nesli'  in  the  sense  of  soft  through 
moisture,  '  leer'  in  that  of  empty,  '  eame'  in  that  of 
uncle,  mother^ s  brother  (the  German  ^  oheim'),  good 
Saxon-English  once,  still  live  on  in  some  of  our  pro- 
vincial dialects ;  so  does  '  flitter-mouse'  or  '  flutter- 
mouse'  (mus  volitans),  where  we  should  use  bat.  In- 
deed, of  those  above  named,  several  do  the  same ;  it 
is  so  with  *  frimm,'  with  '  to  sag,'  '  to  nimm.'  '  Heft,' 
employed- by  Shakespeare  in  the  sense  of  weight,  is 
still  employed  in  the  same  sense  by  our  peasants  in 
Hampshire. 

A  number  of  vigorous  compounds  we  have  dropped 
and  let  go.  Such,  for  instance,  is  Wiclif 's  '  dear- 
wortli'  for  beloved.  '  Ear-sports'  for  entertainments 
of  song  or  music  (axpo  Vara)  is  a  constantly-recurring 
word  in  Holland's  Plutarch.  Were  it  not  for  Shake- 
speare, we  should  have  quite  forgotten  that  young  men 
of  hasty,  liery  valor  were  called  '  hotspm-s  ;'  and  even 
now  we  regard  the  word  rather  as  the  proper  name 
of  one  than  that  which  would  have  been  once  alike 
the  designation  of  all.f     Fuller  warns  men  that  they 

*  We  must  not  suppose  that  this  still  survives  in  '(/eV-falcon/ which 
wholly  belongs  to  the  Latin  element  of  the  language ;  being  the  later 
Latin  'gyrofaico/  and  that,  "a  gyrando,  quia  diu  gyrando  acriter 
praidam  insequitur.** 

t  "  Some  hotspurs  there  were  that  gave  counsel  to  go  against  them 
with  all  their  forces,  and  to  fright  and  terrify  them,  if  they  made  slow 
haste  "  —  {Holland's  Livi/,  p.  922.) 


110        DIMINUTIONS   OF  THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

should  not  '  witwaiiton'*  with  God.  Severe,  austere 
old  men,  such  as,  in  Falstaff's  words,  would  "  hate  us 
youth,"  were  '  grimsirs'  or  '  grimsires'  once  (Massin- 
ger).  *  Realm-rape,'  occurring  in  The  Mirror  for 
Magistrates,  is  a  vigorous  word.  '  Rootfast'  and 
'  rootfastness'f  were  ill  lost,  being  worthy  to  have 
lived  ;  so,  too,  was  Lord  Brooke's  '  book-hunger ;'  and 
Baxter's  '  word-warriors,'  with  which  term  he  noted 
those  whose  strife  was  only  about  words.  I  believe 
'  malingerer'  is  familiar  enough  to  military  men,  but  I 
do  not  find  it  in  our  dictionaries ;  being  the  soldier 
who,  out  of  evil  will  (malin  gre)  to  his  work,  shams 
and  shirks,  and  is  not  found  in  the  ranks. 

Those  who  would  gladly  have  seen  the  Anglo-Saxon 
to  have  predominated  over  the  Latin  element  in  our 
language,  even  more  than  it  actually  has  done,  must 
note  with  regret  that  in  a  great  many  instances  a 
word  of  the  former  stock  has  been  dropped,  and  a 
Latin  coined  to  supply  its  place ;  or  where  the  two 
once  existed  side  by  side,  the  Saxon  has  died,  and 
the  Latin  lived  on.  Thus,  Wiclif  employed  '  sooth- 
saw,'  where  we  now  use  proverb  ;  '  sourdough,'  where 
we  employ  leaven  ;  '  to  afterthink'  (still  in  use  in  Lan- 
cashire) for  to  repent ;  '  medeful,'  which  has  given 
way  to  *  meritorious ;'  Chaucer  has  '  foreword'  for 
promise ;  Sir  John  Cheke  '  freshman'  for  proselyte, 
'  mooned'  for  lunatic  ;  Jewel  '  fgretalk,'  where  we  now 
employ  preface  ;  '  Holland  '  sunstead,'  where  we  use 

*  The  word  is  not  in  our  dictionaries ;  but  it  is  not,  as  might  be 
assumed,  a  mere  combination  of  Fuller's  for  a  single  occasion.  Thus 
Sylvester  (  Works,  1621,  p.  1150)  :— 

*•  All  epicures,  witwantons,  atheists." 

t  State  Papers,  vol.  vi.,  p.  534. 


SAXON  WORDS  THRUST  OUT.         Ill 

solstice  ;  and  '  leechcraft'  for  medicine.  '  Starconner' 
(Gascoigne)  did  service  once,  if  not  instead  of  astrol- 
oger, yet  side  by  side  with  it ;  'to  eyebite'  (Holland) 
was  the  expressive  word  which  was  employed  where 
we  now  employ  to  fascinate  ;  '  waterfright'  was  a  bet- 
ter word  than  our  awkward  Greek  hydrophobia. 
*  Wan  hope,'  as  we  saw  just  now,  has  given  place  to 
despair ;  '  middler,'  for  one  who  goes  in  the  middle, 
to  mediator  ;  and  it  would  be  easy  to  increase  this  list. 

I  had  occasion  just  now  to  notice  the  fact  that  many 
words  survive  in  our  provincial  dialects,  long  after 
they  have  died  out  from  the  main  body  of  the  speech. 
The  fact  is  one  connected  with  so  much  of  deep  inter- 
est in  the  history  of  language,  that  I  can  not  pass  it 
thus  slightly  over.  It  is  one  which,  rightly  regarded, 
may  assist  to  put  us  in  a  just  point  of  view  for  estima- 
ting the  character  of  the  local  and  provincial  in  speech, 
and  rescuing  it  from  that  unmerited  contempt  and 
neglect  with  which  it  is  often  regarded.  I  must  here 
go  somewhat  further  back  than  I  could  wish  ;  but  only 
so,  only  by  looking  at  the  matter  in  connection  with 
other  phenomena  of  speech,  can  I  hope  to  explain  to 
you  the  worth  and  significance  which  local  and  pro- 
vincial words  and  usages  must  oftentimes  possess. 

Let  us,  then,  first  suppose  a  portion  of  those  speak- 
ing a  language  to  have  been  separated  off"  from  the 
main  body  of  its  speakers,  either  through  their  forsa- 
king for  one  cause  or  other  their  native  seats,  or  by 
the  intrusion  of  a  hostile  people,  like  a  wedge,  between 
them  and  the  others,  forcibly  keeping  them  asunder, 
and  cutting  off  their  communications,  as  the  Saxons 
intruded  between  the  Britons  of  Cornwall  and  of 
Wales  ;  and  it  will  inevitably  happen  that  before  very 


112        DIMINUTIONS   OP  THE   ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

long  diiferences  of  speech  will  begin  to  reveal  them- 
selves between  those  to  whom  even  dialectic  distinc- 
tions had  been  once  unknown.  The  divergences  will 
be  of  various  kinds  ;  idioms  will  come  up  in  the  sepa- 
rated body,  which,  not  being  recognised  and  allowed 
by  those  who  will  continue  the  arbiters  of  the  lan- 
guage, will  be  esteemed  by  them,  should  they  come 
under  their  notice,  violations  of  its  law,  or  at  any  rate 
departures  from  its  purity.  Where  a  colony  has  gone 
forth  into  new  seats,  and  exists  under  new  conditions, 
it  is  probable  that  the  necessities,  physical  and  moral, 
rising  out  of  these  new  conditions,  will  give  birth  to 
words  among  them,  which  there  will  be  nothing  to 
call  out  among  those  who  continue  in  the  old  haunts 
of  the  nation  ;  or  even  their  intercourse  with  people 
whom  they,  and  not  the  other,  now  touch,  will  bring 
in  new  words,  as  the  contact  with  the  Indian  tribes 
has  given  to  American-English  a  certain  number  of 
words  hardly  or  not  at  all  allowed  by  us. 

There  is  another  cause,  however,  which  will  proba- 
bly bje  more  effectual  than  all  these — namely,  that 
words  will  in  process  of  time  be  dropped  by  those 
who  constitute  the  original  stock  of  the  nation,  which 
will  not  be  dropped  by  the  offshoot ;  idioms  which 
those  have  overlived,  and  have  stored  up  in  the  un- 
honored  lumber-room  of  the  past,  will  still  be  in  use 
and  currency  among  the  smaller  and  separated  sec- 
tion which  has  gone  forth ;  and  thus  it  will  come  to 
pass  that  what  seems  and  in  fact  is  the  newer  swarm, 
will  have  many  older  words,  and  very  often  an  archaic 
air  and  old-world  fashion  both  about  the  words  they 
use,  the  pronunciation  of  the  words,  and  the  order 
and  manner  in  which  they  combine  them.     Thus,  after 


ARCHAISMS  IN  LANGUAGE.  113 

the  Conquest,  we  know  that  our  insular  French  gradu- 
ally diverged  from  the  French  of  the  continent.  Chau- 
cer's prioress  in  the  Canterbury  Tales  could  speak  her 
French  "  full  faire  and  fetisbly,"  but  it  was  French, 
as  the  poet  slyly  adds — 

"  After  the  scole  of  Stratford  atte  bow, 
For  French  of  Paris  was  to  hire  unknowe." 

One  of  our  old  chroniclers,  writing  in  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth,  informs  us  that  by  the  English  colonists 
within  the  Pale  in  Ireland  a  great  many  words  were 
preserved  in  common  use,  "  the  dregs  of  the  old  an- 
cient Chaucer  English'^  as  he  contemptuously  calls  it, 
which  had  become  quite  obsolete  and  forgotten  in 
England  itself.  For  example,  they  still  called  a  spi- 
der an  '  attercop*  —  a  word,  by-the-way,  which  in  the 
north  has  not  even  now  gone  out  of  popular  use ;  a 
physician  a  '  leech,'  as  in  poetry  he  still  is  called  ;  a 
dunghill  was  still  for  them  a  '  mixen'  (the  word  is 
still  common  all  over  England  in  this  sense)  ;  a  quad- 
rangle or  base  court  was  a  *  bawn  ;'*  they  employed 
'  uncouth'  in  the  earlier  sense  of  unknown.  Nay, 
more,  their  general  manner  of  speech  was  so  different, 
though  continuing  English  still,  that  Englishmen  at 
their  first  coming  over  often  found  it  hard  or  impossi- 
ble to  comprehend.  We  have  another  example  of  the 
same  in  what  took  place  after  the  revocation  of  the 
edict  of  Nantes,  and  the  consequent  formation  of  colo- 
nies of  protestant  French  emigrants  in  various  places, 
especially  in  Amsterdam  and  other  chief  cities  of  Hoi- 

*  The  only  two  writers  of  whom  I  am  aware  as  subsequently  using 
this  word  arc,  both  writing  in  Ireland  and  of  Irish  matters,  Spenser 
and  Swift.     The  passages  are  both  quoted  in  Richardson's  Dictionartj. 


114        DIMINUTIONS   OF  THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

land.  There  gradually  grew  up  among  these  what 
came  to  be  called  ''  refugee  French,"  which  within  a 
generation  or  two  diverged  in  several  particulars  from 
the  classical  language  of  France  ;  its  divergence  being 
mainly  occasioned  by  this,  that  it  remained  stationary, 
while  the  classical  language  was  in  motion  ;  it  re- 
tained usages  and  words  which  the  latter  had  con- 
sented to  let  go.* 

Nor  is  it  otherwise  in  respect  of  our  English  pro- 
vincialisms. It  is  true  that  our  country  people  who 
in  the  main  employ  them,  have  not  been  separated  by 
distance  of  space,  nor  yet  by  insurmountable  obstacles 
intervening,  from  the  main  body  of  their  fellow-coun- 
trymen ;  but  they  have  been  quite  as  effectually  divided 
by  deficient  education.  They  have  been,  if  not  locally, 
yet  intellectually,  kept  at  a  distance  from  the  onward 
march  of  the  nation's  mind ;  and  of  them  also  it  is 
true  that  a  great  number  of  their  words,  idioms,  turns 
of  speech,  which  we  are  ready  to  set  down  as  vulgar- 
isms, solecisms  of  speech,  violations  of  the  primary 
rules  of  grammar,  do  merely  attest  that  those  who 
employ  them  have  not  kept  abreast  with  the  advance 
of  the  language  and  nation,  but  have  been  left  behind 
by  it.  The  usages  are  only  local  in  the  fact  that, 
having  once  been  employed  by  the  whole  body  of  the 
English  people,  they  have  now  receded  from  the  lips 
of  all  except  those  in  some  certain  country  districts, 
who  have  been  more  faithful  than  others  to  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  language. 

It  is  thus  in  respect  of  a  great  number  of  isolated 
words,  which  were  excellent  Anglo-Saxon,  which  were 

*  There  is  an  excellent  account  of  this  "refugee  French"  in  Weiss* 
History  of  the  P^'otestant  Refugees  of  France, 


OLD    PARTICIPLES.  115 

excellent  early  English,  and  which  only  are  not  ex- 
cellent present  English,  because  use,  which  is  the  su- 
preme arbiter  in  these  matters,  has  decided  against 
their  lurther  employment.  Several  of  these  I  enume- 
rated just  now.  It  is  thus  also  with  several  gram- 
matical forms  and  flexions.  For  instance,  where  we 
decline  the  plural  of  '  I  sing,'  '  we  sing,'  '  ye  sing,' 
*  they  sing,'  there  are  parts  of  England  in  which  they 
wouli  decline, '  we  s'mgen,^ '  ye  singew,'  '  they  singew.' 
This  is  not  indeed  the  original  form  of  the  plural,  but 
it  is  that  form  of  it  which,  coming  up  about  Chaucer's 
time,  was  just  going  out  in  Spenser's ;  he,  though  we 
must  ever  keep  in  mind  that  he  does  not  fairly  repre- 
sent the  language  of  his  time,  or  indeed  of  any  time, 
affecting  a  certain  artificial  archaism  both  in  words 
and  forms,  continually  uses  it.*  After  him  it  becomes 
ever  rarer,  the  last  of  whom  I  am  aware  as  occasion- 
ally using  it  being  Fuller,  until  it  quite  disappears. 

The  termination  of  the  participle  present  in  '  ande' 
or  '  and,'  which  was  first  changed  into  '  end,'  and  then 
further  softened  into  '  ing ;'  '  sendawt/e,'  '  sende/16?,' 
'  sendm^,'  may  be  observed  in  Scotch  poetry  down  to 

*  With  all  its  severity,  there  is  some  truth  in  Ben  Jonson's  obser- 
vation :  "  Spenser,  in  affecting  the  ancients,  writ  no  language."  In 
this  matter,  however,  Ben  Jonson  was  at  one  with  him ;  for  he  does 
not  hesitate  to  express  his  strong  regret  that  this  form  has  not  been 
retained.  "  The  persons  plural,"  he  says  (English  Grammar,  c.  17), 
"  keep  the  termination  of  the  first  person  singular.  In  former  times, 
till  about  the  reign  of  King  Henry  VIII.,  they  were  wont  to  be  formed 
by  adding  en;  thus,  loven,  sayen,  complainen.  But  now  (whatsoever 
is  the  cause)  it  hath  quite  grown  out  of  use,  and  that  other  so  gener- 
ally prevailed,  that  I  dare  not  presume  to  set  this  afoot  again;  albeit 
(to  tell  you  my  opinion)  I  am  persuaded  that  the  lack  hereof,  well 
considered,  will  be  found  a  great  blemish  to  our  tongue.  For  seeing 
time  and  peison  be  as  it  were  the  right  and  left  hand  of  a  verb,  what 
can  the  maiming  hing  else,  but  a  lameness  to  the  whole  body"?" 


116        DIMINUTIONS   OP   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

a  very  recent  date.  In  the  earlier  shape  in  which  we 
post^ess  Wiclif 's  Bible  '  and'  or  '  end'  is  predominantly, 
and  in  some  parts  of  it  invariably,  used  as  the  parti- 
cipial termination ;  while  in  the  somewhat  later  re- 
vision '  ing'  has  taken  its  place.  In  Chaucer  the  old 
form  still  occasionally  struggles  with  the  new ;  thus 
'  iQ^ande^'  '  criande,^ '  sparawc?^,' '  sittande,^  for  '  leap- 
ing,' '  crying,'  '  sparing,'  ^  sitting  ;'  but  it  has  nearly 
given  away.  In  Spenser  a  solitary  example  of  it  crops 
out  in  the  term  '  glitterand  arms,'  which  he  is  fond 
of  employing. 

Of  such  as  may  now  employ  forms  like  these  we 
must  say,  not  that  they  violate  the  laws  of  the  lan- 
guage, but  only  that  they  have  taken  their  permanent 
stand  at  a  point  of  it  which  was  only  a  point  of  tran- 
sition, and  which  it  has  now  left  behind,  and  overlived. 
Thus,  to  take  examples  which  you  may  hear  at  the 
present  day  in  almost  any  part  of  England  —  a  coun- 
tryman will  say,  ''He  made  me  afeardf  or  ''The 
price  of  corn  ris  last  market-day ;"  or  "  I  will  axe 
him  his  name."  You  would  probably  set  these  phra- 
ses down  for  barbarous  English.  They  are  not  so  at 
all ;  in  one  sense  they  are  quite  as  good  English  as 
"  He  made  me  afraid  f  or  "  The  price  of  corn  rose 
last  market-day ;"  or  "I  will  ask  him  his  name." 
'Afeard,'  used  by  Spenser,  is  the  regular  participle 
of  the  old  verb  '  to  affear,'  still  existing  as  a  law- 
term,  as  '  afraid'  is  of  '  to  affray,'  and  just  as  good 
English ;  '  ris'  or  '  risse'  is  an  old  preterite  of  '  to 
rise ;'  '  to  axe'  is  not  a  mispronunciation  of  '  to  ask,' 
but  a  genuine  English  form  of  the  word,  the  form 
which  in  the  earlier  English  it  constantly  assumed ; 
it  is  quite  exceptional  when  the  word  appears  in  its 


ANTIQUATED   PRONUNCIATION.  117 

other,  that  is  its  present,  shape  in  Wiclif 's  Bible  ;  and 
indeed  '  axe'  occurs  continually,  I  know  not  whether 
invariably,  in  Tyndale's  translation  of  the  Scriptures. 
Even  such  phrases  as  "  Put  them  things  away,"  or 
"  The  man  what  owns  the  horse,"  are  not  bad,  but 
only  antiquated,  English.  While  I  say  this,  I  would 
not  imply  that  these  forms  are  open  to  you  to  use  ;  I 
do  not  say  they  would  be  good  English /or  you.  They 
would  not ;  inasmuch  as  they  are  contrary  to  present 
use  and  custom,  and  these  must  be  our  standards  in 
what  we  speak  and  in  what  we  write ;  just  as  in  our 
buying  and  selling  we  are  bound  to  use  the  current 
coin  of  the  realm,  and  not  attempt  to  pass  that  which 
long  since  has  been  called  in,  whatever  merits  or  in- 
trinsic value  it  may  possess.  All  which  I  affirm  is 
that  the  phrases  just  brought  forward  represent  past 
stages  of  the  language,  and  are  not  barbarous  viola- 
tions of  it. 

The  same  may  be  asserted  of  certain  ways  of  pro- 
nouncing words,  which  are  now  in  use  among  the 
lower  classes,  but  not  among  the  higher ;  as,  for  ex- 
ample, '  contrary,'  '  mischievous,'  '  blasphemous,'  in- 
stead of  '  contrary,' '  mischievous,'  '  blasphemous.'  It 
would  be  abundantly  easy  to  show  by  a  multitude  of 
quotations  from  our  poets,  and  those  reaching  very  far 
down,  that  these  are  merely  the  retention  of  the  ear- 
lier pronunciation  by  the  people,  after  the  higher  clas- 
ses have  abandoned  it.*  And  on  the  strength  of  what 
has  just  been  spoken,  let  me  here  suggest  to  you  that 

*  A  single  proof  may  in  each  case  suffice : 
"  Our  wills  and  fates  do  so  contrary  run."  —  Shakespeare. 
"  Ne  let  mischievous  witches  with  their  charms."  —  Spenser, 
"O  argument  blasphemous,  false,  and  proud."  — M/fon. 


118        DIMINUTIONS   OF  THE   ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

in  your  place  and  position  you  should  be  on  the  watch 
for  provincial  words  and  inflexions,  local  idioms,  and 
modes  of  pronouncing.  Count  nothing  in  this  kind 
beneath  your  notice.  Do  not  at  once  ascribe  anything 
which  you  hear  to  the  ignorance  or  stupidity  of  tho 
speaker.  Lists  and  collections  of  provincial  usage, 
such  as  I  have  suggested,  always  have  their  value. 
If  you  are  not  able  to  turn  them  to  any  profit  your- 
selves, and  they  may  not  stand  in  close  enough  con- 
nection with  your  own  .studies  for  this,  yet  there  al- 
ways are  those  who  will  thank  you  for  them  ;  those  to 
w^hom  tlie  humblest  of  these  collections,  carefully  and 
intelligently  made,  will  be  in  one  way  or  other  of  real 
assistance.  And  there  is  the  more  need  to  urge  this 
at  the  present,  because,  notwithstanding  the  tenacity 
with  which  our  country  folk  cleave  to  their  old  forms 
and  usages,  still  those  forms  and  usages  must  now  be 
rapidly  growing  fewer ;  and  there  are  forces,  moral 
and  material,  at  work  in  England,  which  will  prob- 
ably cause  that  of  those  which  now  survive  the  greater 
part  will  within  the  next  fifty  years  have  disap- 
peared. 

Before  quitting  this  subject,  let  me  instance  one 
example  more  of  that  which  is  commonly  accounted 
ungrammatical  usage,  but  which  is  really  the  reten- 
tion of  old  grammar  by  some,  where  others  have  sub- 
stituted new :  I  mean  the  constant  application  by  our 
rustic  population  in  the  south,  and  I  dare  say  through 
all  parts  of  England,  of  '  his'  to  inanimate  objects, 
and  to  these  not  personified,  no  less  than  to  persons  ; 
where  '  its'  would  be  employed  by  others.  I  shall 
presently  call  your  attention  to  the  late  introduction 
of  this  little  word  '  its'  into  the  English  language ; 


HIS    AND   ITS.  119 

resting  as  altogether  it  does  on  a  mistake  and  a  for- 
getfulness  of  the  true  constructions  of  the  language. 
It  would  be  long  to  explain  this  at  full :  it  has  been 
explained  well  in  Latham's  English  Language.  I 
will  only  endeavor  very  briefly  to  put  the  matter  be- 
fore you,  and  trace  the  steps  by  which  this  came  to 
pass.  Let  me  prepare  the  way  by  reminding  you  first 
that  ^  his'  does  not  exactly  correspond  to  '  suus,'  but 
to  '  sui,'  '  ejus,'  or  '  illius'  —  being  the  genitive  of  '  he' 
('he's'  =  'his')  ;  and  that  *  it,'  or  'hit,'  as  it  was 
long  written  (Sir  Thomas  More  in  general  so  writes 
it,  although  not  many  others  so  late  as  him),  is  the 
neuter  of  '  he,'  the  final  t  being  the  sign  of  this  neu- 
ter, just  as  '  illud'  is  the  neuter  of  *  ille.'  Now,  by 
way  of  illustrating  the  matter  in  hand,  let  us  suppose 
that  those  who  spoke  the  Latin  language  had  forgot- 
ten that  the  final  d  in  '  illud'  was  the  sign  of  the  neu- 
ter ;  let  us  suppose  further  that '  illud'  through  some 
cause  or  other  had  still  further  lost  in  their  eyes  its 
connection  with  '  ille,'  as  '  hit'  through  becoming  '  it' 
has  obscured  its  relation  to  '  he ;'  and  that  it  had 
been  dealt  with  by  them  quite  as  an  independent 
word,  upon  which  they  proceeded  to  form  a  genitive 
of  its  own,  while  '  illius'  no  longer  seemed  to  them 
such  genitive  ;  and  that  they  had  proceeded  to  fashion 
an  '  illudz?/5 :'  so  doing,  they  would  have  committed 
exactly  the  same  error  which  we  have  committed  in 
forming  the  word  '  its,'  and  in  dismissing  '  his'  from 
any  longer  serving  as  the  neuter  genitive  no  less  than 
the  masculine.  I  do  not  say  that  many  conveniences 
have  not  attended  the  change :  the  desire  to  obtain 
these  was  doubtless  the  motive  to  the  creation  of  this 
genitive ;  which  for  all  this  rested  on  a  misapprehen- 


120        DIMINUTIONS   OF  THE   ENGLISH  LA.NGUAGE. 

sion,  and,  however  now  sanctioned  by  time  and  usage, 
can  be  considered  as  originally  only  a  blunder. 

Attention  once  called  to  the  matter,  it  is  surprising 
to  note  of  how  recent  introduction  the  word  '  its* 
proves  to  be  into  the  language.  Through  the  whole 
of  our  authorized  version  of  the  Bible, '  its'  does  not 
once  occur  ;*  the  office  which  it  now  fulfils  being  ac- 
complished as  our  rustics  accomplish  it  at  the  present, 
by  '  his't  or  '  her,' J  applied  as  freely  to  inanimate 
things  as  to  persons,  or  else  by  '  thereof  or  '  of  it.' 
*  Its'  occurs,  I  believe,  only  three  times,  in  all  Shake- 
speare, and  Milton  has  only  once  admitted  it  into  his 
poetry  ;|1  and  this,  though  in  his  time  others  freely 
allowed  it.  How  soon  all  this  was  forgotten  we  have 
striking  evidence  in  the  fact  that  when  Dry  den,  in 
one  of  his  fault-finding  moods  with  the  great  men  of 
the  preceding  generation,  is  taking  Ben  Jonson  to 
task  for  general  inaccuracy  in  his  English  diction, 
among  other  counts  of  his  indictment,  he  quotes  this 
line  from  Catiline  — 

^'  Though  heaven  should  speak  with  all  his  wrath  at  once"  — 

and  proceeds,  "  heaven  is  ill  syntax  with  his ;"  while 
in  fact,  up  to  within  forty  or  fifty  years  of  the  time 
when  Dryden  began  to  write,  no  other  syntax  was 
known.     Curious  also  is  it  to  note  that  in  the  long 

*  Lev.  XXV.  5  has  been  adduced,  as  an  exception  to  this  assertion ; 
but  it  is  not  so.  The  *  its'  which  is  now  found  there,  is  not  found  in 
the  original  edition  of  1611. 

1  Thus,  Exod.  xxxvii.  17:  '^  Of  beaten  work  made  he  the  candle- 
stick ;  his  shaft  and  his  branch,  his  bowls,  his  knops,  and  his  flowers, 
were  of  the  same;"  cf.  I  Kings  vii.  23;  Matt.  v.  15;  xxvi.  52. 

X  Rev.  xxii.  2  :  "  The  tree  of  life,  which  yielded  her  fruit  every 
month." 

jj  Hi^mn  on  the  Nativitj/,  stanza  x. 


LUNCHEON,   NUNTION,   ETC.  121 

controversy  which  followed  on  Chatterton's  publica- 
tion of  the  poems  ascribed  by  him  to  a  monk  Rowlie, 
living  in  the  fifteenth  century,  no  one  appealed  at  the 
time  to  such  lines  as  the  following — 

"  Life  and  all  its  goods  I  scorn" — 

as  at  once  decisive  of  the  fact  that  the  poems  were 
not  of  the  age  which  they  pretended.  Warton,  who 
rejected,  although  with  a  certain  amount  of  hesitation, 
the  poems  —  giving  reasons,  and  many  of  them  good 
ones,  for  this  rejection — yet  took  no  notice  of  this 
little  word  ;  while  yet  there  needed  nothing  more  than 
to  point  to  it,  for  the  disposing  of  the  whole  question : 
the  forgery  at  once  was  betrayed.* 

*  Lest  this  digression  should  grow  to  an  immoderate  length,  I  must 
append  in  a  note  another  illustration  of  the  matter  in  hand.  Instead 
of  *  luncheon,'  our  country-people  in  Hampshire,  as  in  many  other 
parts,  always  use  the  form  'nuncheon'or  'nuntion,'  I  can  not  doubt 
that  either  this  was  the  original  pronunciation,  and  our  received  one 
a  modern  corruption ;  or  else,  and  this  appears  to  me  more  probable, 
that  we  have  made  a  confusion  between  two  origmally  diflFerent  words, 
from  which  they  have  kept  clear.  Thus,  in  Howell's  Vocabularj/, 
1659,  and  in  Cotgrave's  French  and  English  Dictionary,  both  words 
occur:  "nuncion  or  nuncheon,  the  afternoon's  repast"  (cf.  Hxidihras, 
i.,  1, 346  :  "  They  took  their  breakfasts  or  their  nuncheons"),  and  **  lun- 
chion,  a  big  piece,"  that  is,  of  bread;  for  both  give  the  old  French 
'canbot,'  which  has  this  meaning,  as  the  equivalent  of  luncheon.  It 
is  clear  that  in  this  sense  of  lump  or  *  big  piece'  Gay  uses  Muncheon  :* 

"  When  hungry  thou  stood'st  staring  like  an  oaf, 
I  sliced  the  luncheon  from  the  barley  loaf." 

And  Miss  Baker,  in  her  Northamptonshire  Glossary,  explains  *  lunch* 
as  "  a  large  lump  of  bread,  or  other  edible  :  *  He  helped  himself  to  a 
good  lunch  of  cake.'  "  We  may  note  further  that  this  *  nuntion'  may 
possibly  put  us  on  the  right  track  for  arriving  at  the  etym.ology  of  the 
word.  Kichardson  has  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  it  is  spelt 
'  noon-shun'  in  Browne's  Pastorals,  which  must  at  least  suggest  as 
possible  and  plausible  that  the  '  nuntion'  was  originally  applied  to 
the  laborer's  slight  meal,  to  which  he  withdrew  for  the  shunning  of  the 

6 


122        DIMINUTIONS   OF  THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

What  has  been  here  said  in  respect  of  much  of  our 
provincial  English,  namely,  that  it  is  old  English  ra- 
ther than  bad  English,  may  be  affirmed,  no  doubt,  with 
equal  right  in  respect  of  many  so-called  Americanisms. 
There  are  parts  of  America  where  '  het'  is  used,  or 
was  used  a  few  years  since,  as  the  perfect  of  '  to  heat  ;* 
*  holp'  as  the  perfect  of  '  to  help ;'  '  stricken'  as  the 
participle  of  '  to  strike.'  Again,  there  are  words 
which  have  become  obsolete  here  during  the  last  two 
hundred  years,  which  have  not  become  obsolete  there, 
although  many  of  them  probably  retain  only  a  provin- 
cial life.  Thus  '  slick,'  which  indeed  is  only  another 
form  of '  sleek,'  was  employed  by  our  good  writers  of 
the  seventeenth  century.*  Other  words,  again,  which 
indeed  have  continued  in  currency  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic,  have  yet  on  our  side  receded  from  their 
original  use,  while  they  have  not  receded  from  it  on 
the  other.     '  Plunder'  is  a  word  in  point. 

In  the  contemplation  of  facts  like  these  it  has  been 
sometimes  asked  whether  a  day  will  ever  arrive  when 
the  language  spoken  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  and 
on  the  other  will  divide  into  two  languages,  an  old 
English  and  a  new.     We  may  confidently  answer,  no. 

heat  of  the  middle  noon;  especially  when  in  Lancashire  we  find  a  word 
of  similar  formation,  'noon-scape/  and  in  Norfolk  'noon-miss/  for 
the  time  when  laborers  rest  after  dinner.  It  is  at  any  rate  certain 
that  the  dignity  to  which  Munch'  or  'luncheon'  has  now  arrived,  as 
when  we  read  in  the  newspapers  of  a  "  magnificent  luncheon,"  is  alto- 
gether modern  ;  the  word  belonged  a  century  ago  to  rustic  life,  and 
in  literature  had  not  travelled  beyond  the  "  hobnailed  pastorals"  which 
professed  to  describe  that  life. 

*  Thus,  Fuller  {Pisgah  Sight  of  Palestine,  vol.  ii.,  p.  190) :  "  Sure 
I  am  this  city  [the  New  Jerusalem],  as  presented  by  the  prophet,  was 
fairer,  finer,  slicker,  smoother,  more  exact,  than  any  fabric  the  earth 
afForded." 


OLD    AND   NEW   ENGLISH.  123 

Doubtless,  if  those  who  went  out  from  us  to  people 
and  subdue  a  new  continent,  had  left  our  shores  two 
or  three  centuries  earlier  than  they  did,  when  the 
language  was  very  much  farther  removed  from  that 
ideal  after  which  it  was  unconsciously  striving,  and  in 
which,  once  reached,  it  in  great  measure  acquiesced ; 
if  they  had  not  carried  with  them  to  their  distant 
homes  their  English  Bible,  and  what  else  of  worth 
had  been  already  uttered  in  the  English  tongue ;  if, 
having  once  left  us,  the  intercourse  between  Old  and 
New  England  had  been  entirely  broken  off,  or  only 
rare  and  partial — there  would  then  have  unfolded 
themselves  differences  between  the  language  spoken 
here  and  there,  which  in  tract  of  time  accumulating 
and  multiplying,  might  in  the  end  have  justified  the 
regarding  of  the  languages  as  no  longer  one  and  the 
same.  It  could  not  have  been  otherwise  than  that 
such  differences  should  have  displayed  themselves ; 
for  while  there  is  a  law  of  necessity  in  the  evolution 
of  languages,  while  they  pursue  certain  courses  and  in 
certain  directions,  from  which  they  can  be  no  more 
turned  aside  by  the  will  of  men  than  one  of  the  heav- 
enly bodies  could  be  pushed  from  its  orbit  by  any 
engines  of  ours,  there  is  a  law  of  liberty  no  less  ;  and 
this  liberty  would  not  have  failed  to  make  itself  in 
many  ways  felt.  In  the  political  and  social  condition 
of  America,  so  far  removed  from  ours ;  in  the  many 
natural  objects  which  are  not  the  same  with  those 
which  surround  us  here ;  in  efforts  independently  car- 
ried out  to  rid  the  language  of  imperfections,  or  to 
unfold  its  latent  powers  ;  even  in  the  different  effects 
of  soil  and  climate  on  the  organs  of  speech — there 
wovld  have  been  causes  enough  to  have  provoked  in 


124        DIMINUTIONS   OP   THE   ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

the  course  of  time  not  immaterial  divergences  of  lan- 
guage. 

As  it  is,  however,  the  joint  operation  of  those  three 
causes  referred  to  already,  namely,  that  the  separa- 
tion did  not  take  place  till  after  the  language  had 
attained  the  ripeness  of  maturity  ;  that  England  and 
America  owned  a  common  body  of  literature  to  which 
they  alike  looked  up  and  appealed,  as  containing  the 
authoritative  standards  of  the  language  ;  that  the  in- 
tercourse between  the  one  people  and  the  other  has 
been  large  and  frequent,  as  probably  it  will  be  larger 
and  more  frequent  still — these  have  been  strong 
enough  to  traverse  and  check  these  tendencies ;  have 
so  effectually  combined  in  repressing  such  divergence, 
that  the  ivritten  language  of  educated  men  on  both 
sides  of  the  water  remains  precisely  the  same,  their 
.spoken  manifesting  a  few  trivial  differences  of  idiom ; 
while  even  among  those  classes  who  do  not  consciously 
recognise  any  ideal  standard  of  language,  there  are 
scarcely  greater  differences — ^in  some  respects  far 
smaller  —  than  exist  between  inhabitants  of  different 
provinces  in  this  one  island  of  England ;  and  in  the 
future  we  may  reasonably  anticipate  that  these  differ- 
ences, so  far  from  increasing,  will  have  rather  the 
tendency  to  diminish. 

But  I  must  return  from  this  long  digression.  It 
seems  often  as  if  an  almost  unaccountable  caprice 
presided  over  the  fortunes  of  words,  and  determined 
which  should  live  and  which  die.  Thus,  in  a  vast 
number  of  instances,  a  word  lives  on  as  a  verb,  but 
has  ceased  to  be  employed  as  a  noun  ;  we  say  '  to  em- 
barrass,' but  no  longer  an  '  embarrass ;'  'to  revile,' 


EXTINCT   WORDS.  125 

but  not,  with  Chapman  and  Milton,  a  '  revile ;'  *  to 
wed,'  but  not  a  '  wed,'  unless  it  should  be  ur^^ed  that 
this  survives  in  '  ived-lQok^^  a  locking  or  binding  to- 
gether through  the  giving  and  receiving  of  a  '  wed'  or 
pledge,  namely,  the  ring ;  we  say  '  to  infest,'  but  use 
no  longer  the  adjective  '  infest.'  Or,  with  a  reversed 
fortune,  a  word  lives  on  as  a  noun,  but  has  perished 
as  a  verb  :  thus,  as  a  noun  substantive,  a  '  slug,'  but  no 
longer  '  to  slug'  or  render  slothful ;  a  '  child,'  but  no 
longer  '  to  child'  (^"  childing  autumn,"  Shakespeare)  ; 
a  '  rogue,'  but  not  '  to  rogue.'  Or  as  a  noun  q^djective, 
'  serene,'  but  not  '  to  serene,'  a  beautiful  word,  which 
we  have  let  go,  as  the  French  have  '  sereiner  ;'*  '  meek,' 
but  not '  to  meek'  (Wiclif )  ;  '  fond,'  but  not  '  to  fond' 
(Dryden)  ;  '  intricate,'  but  '  to  intricate'  (Jeremy 
Taylor)  no  longer. 

Or  again,  the  affirmative  remains,  but  the  negative 
is  gone  :  thus,  '  wisdom,'  but  not  any  more  '  unwisdom' 
(Wiclif)  ;  '  cunning,'  but  not '  uncunning ;' '  manhood,' 

*  wit,'  '  mighty,'  '  tall,'  but  not  '  unmanhood,'  '  unwit,' 

*  unmighty,'  '  untall'  (all  in  Chaucer)  ;  '  buxom,'  but 
not  '  unbuxom'  (Dryden)  ;  '  ease,'  but  not  '  unease' 
(Hacket)  ; '  repentance,'  but  not '  unrepentance ;'  *  sci- 
ence, but  not  '  nescience'  (Glanvill)  ;  '  to  know,'  but 
not '  to  unknow'  (Wiclif),  surviving  only  in  '  unknow- 
ing' and  '  unknown.'     Or,  once  more,  with  a  curious 

*  How  many  words  modern  French  has  lost  which  are  most  vigor- 
ous and  admirable,  the  absence  of  which  can  only  now  be  supplied  by 
a  circumlocution  or  by  some  less  excellent  word!  'Oseur,'  'affran- 
chisseur'  (Amyot),  'mepriseur,'  *  murmurateur/  'blaiidisscur' (Bos- 
suet),  *abuseur' (Rabelais),  '  desabusement,'  'rancceur,'  are  all  obsolete 
at  the  present.  So  '  desaimer,'  to  cease  to  love  ('  disamare'  in  Italian), 
* guirlander,'  'steriliser,  * blandissant,*  * ordonnement'  (Montaigne], 
with  innumerable  others 


126        DIMINUTIONS   OF  THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

variation  from  this,  the  negative  survives,  while  the 
affirmative  is  gone  :  thus,  '  wieldy'  (Chaucer)  survives 
only  in  '  unwieldy ;'  '■  couth'  and  '  couthly'  (both  in 
Spenser)  only  in  '  uncouth'  and  '  uncouthly  ;'  '  ruly' 
(Foxe)  only  in  '  unruly  ;'  '  gainly'  (Henry  More)  in 
'  ungainly  ;'  these  last  two  were  both  of  them  service- 
able words,  and  have  been  ill  lost ;  '  gainly'  is  indeed 
still  common  in  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire  ;  '  exo- 
rable'  (Holland)  and  '  evitable'  only  in  '  inexorable' 
and  '  inevitable  ;' '  faultless'  remains,  but  hardly  '  fault- 
ful'  (Sh^espeare).  In  like  manner,  ^  semble'  (Foxe) 
has,  except  as  a  technical  law  term,  disappeared ; 
while  '  dissemble'  continues.  So  also  of  other  pairs, 
one  has  been  taken  and  one  left ;  '  height,'  or  '  highth,' 
as  Milton  better  spelt  it,  remains,  but '  lowth'  (Becon) 
is  gone ;  '  righteousness,'  or  '  right wiseness,'  as  it  would 
once  and  more  accurately  have  been  written,  for  '  righ- 
teous' is  a  corruption  of  '  rightwise,'  remains,  but  its 
correspondent  '  wrongwiseness'  has  been  taken  ;  '  in- 
road' continues,  but  '  outroad'  (Holland)  has  disap- 
peared ;  '  levant'  lives,  but  '  ponent'  (Holland)  has 
died ;  ^  to  extricate'  continues,  but,  as  we  saw  just 
now,  '  to  intricate'  does  not.  Again,  of  whole  groups 
of  words  formed  on  some  particular  scheme,  it  may 
be  only  a  single  specimen  will  survive.  Thus,  '  gain- 
say,' that  is,  again  say,  survives ;  but  '  gainstrive' 
(Foxe),  that  is,  resist,  '  gainstand,' and  other  simi- 
larly-formed words,  exist  no  longer.  It  is  the  same 
with  '  foolhardy,'  which  is  but  one,  though  now  indeed 
the  only  one  remaining,  of  at  least  four  adjectives 
formed  on  the  same  principle  :  thus,  '  foollarge,'  quite 
as  expressive  a  word  as  prodigal,  occurs  in  Chaucer, 
and  '  foolhasty,'  found  also  in  him,  lived   on  to  the 


RATHE,  RATHER,  RATHEST.  127 

time  of  Holland ;  while  '  foolhappy'  is  in  Spenser. 
*  Exhort'  remains  ;  but '  dehort,'  a  word  whose  place 
neither  dissuade  nor  any  other  exactly  supplies,  has 
escaped  us.  We  have  *  twilight,'  but  '  twibill'  (=  bi- 
pennis,  Chapman)  is  extinct. 

Let  me  mention  another  real  loss,  where  in  like 
manner  there  remains  in  the  present  language  some- 
thing to  remind  us  of  that  which  is  gone.  The  com- 
parative '  rather'  stands  alone,  having  dropped  on 
either  side  its  positive  '  rathe'  and  superlative '  rathest.' 
'  Rathe,'  having  the  sense  of  early,  though  a  graceful 
word,  and  not  fallen  quite  out  of  popular  remem- 
brance, inasmuch  as  it  is  embalmed  in  the  Lycidas  of 
Milton  — 

"And  the  rathe  primrose,  which  forsaken  dies"  — 

might  still  be  suffered  to  share  the  common  lot  of  so 
many  words  which  have  perished,  though  worthy  to 
have  lived  ;  but  the  disuse  of  '  rathest'  has  created  a 
real  gap  in  the  language,  and  the  more  so,  seeing  that 
'  liefest'  is  gone  too.  '  Rather'  expresses  the  Latin 
'-  potius  ;'  but  '  rathest'  being  gone,  we  have  no  word, 
unless  '  soonest'  may  be  accepted  as  such,  to  express 
'  potissimum,'  that  is,  the  preference,  not  of  one  way 
over  another  or  over  certain  others,  but  of  one  over 
all ;  which  we  therefore  effect  by  dint  of  various  cir- 
cumlocutions. Nor  is  '  rathest'  so  long  out  of  use, 
that  it  would  be  a  playing  of  the  antic  to  attempt  to 
revive  it.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  found  so  late  as  in 
Bishop  Sanderson's  Sermons,  who  in  the  opening  of 
that  beautiful  sermon  from  the  text,  "  When  my  fa- 
tlier  and  my  mother  forsake  me,  the  Lord  taketh 
me  up,"  puts  the  conjrideration,  "  why  these,"  that  is. 


128        DIMINUTIONS   OF   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE; 

father  and  mother,  "  are  named  the  rathesi,  and  the 
rest  to  be  included  in  them."* 

The  causes  which  are  at  work  to  bring  about  that 
certain  words,  becoming  in  the  course  of  time  obso- 
lete, drop  out  of  the  living  spoken  tongue,  are  often 
very  hard  to  arrive  at.  I  mean  that  it  is  difficult  to 
perceive  how  it  has  come  to  pass  that  there  should  be 
a  certain  tacit  consent  on  the  part  of  a  whole  people 
not  to  employ  them  any  more ;  for,  without  this,  they 
could  not  have  died  out.  I  must  be  content  with 
little  more  than  calling  your  attention  to  the  fact,  and 
illustrating  it  by  a  few  examples.  That  it  is  not  ac- 
cident, that  there  is  a  law  here  at  work,,  however 
hidden  it  may  be  from  us,  is  plain  from  the  fact  that 
certain  families  of  words,  words  formed  on  certain 
principles,  have  a  tendency  thus  to  fall  into  desue- 
tude. 

Thus,  I  think,  we  may  trace  a  certain  tendency  in 
words  ending  in  '  some,'  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  early 
English  '  sum,'  the  German  '  sam'  ('  friedsam,'  '  selt- 
sam'),  to  fall  out  of  use.  It  is  true  that  a  vast  num- 
ber of  these  survive,  as  '  gladsome,' '  handsome,' '  wea- 
risome,' '  buxom'  (this  last  spelt  better  '  bucksome'  by 
our  earlier  writers,  for  its  present  spelling  altogether 
disguises  its  true  character,  and  the  family  to  whi<3h 
it  belongs — being  the  same  word  as  the  German 
'  beugsam'  or  '  biegsam,'  bendable,  compliant)  ;  but  a 
large  number  of  these  words,  more  than  can  be  as- 
ciibed  to.  accident,  more  than  their  due  proportion, 
are  either  quite  or  nearly  extinct.  Thus  in  Wiclif 's 
Bible  alone  you  might  note  the  following :  '  lovesum,' 

*  For  other  passages  in  ^\luc•l^  '  raihcst'  occurs,  see  the  State  Pa 
pers,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  92,  170. 


WORDS  ENDING  IN   'SOME'   AND   '  ARD.'  129 

Miatesum,'  'lustsura,'  'wealsum,'  '  heavy  sum,' Might- 
sum,'  '  dclightsum  ;'  of  these,  '  lightsum'  still  survives 
in  provincial  dialects ;  but  all  the  others,  except  the 
last,  are  gone  ;  and  that,  although  used  in  our  author- 
ized version  (Mai.  iii.  12),  is  now  only  employed  in 
poetry.  So,  too,  '  brightsome'  (Marlowe),  'wield- 
some'  (Golding),  '  unlightsome'  (Milton),  *•  ugsome' 
(Foxe),  '  laborsome'  (Shakespeare),  '  longsome'  (Ba- 
con), '  quietsome,'  '  mirksome'  (both  in  Spenser), 
*  toothsome'  (Beaumont  and  Fletcher),  '  gleesome,' 
*joysome'  (both  in  Browne's  Pastorals)^  '  bigsome,' 
'  awsome,' '  timersome,' '  winsome,' '  dosome,'  meaning 
prosperous,  well-to-do  (these  still  surviving  in  the 
north), '  play  some'  (employed  by  the  historian  Hume), 
'  lissome,'  have  nearly  or  quite  disappeared  from  our 
English  speech.  They  seem  to  have  held  their  ground 
in  Scotland  in  considerably  larger  numbers  than  in 
the  south  of  the  island.* 

Neither  can  I  esteem  it  a  mere  accident  that  of  a 
group  of  depreciatory  and  contemptuous  words  ending 
in  '  ard,'  at  least  one  half  should  have  dropped  out  of 
use  ;  I  allude  to  that  group  of  which  '  dotard,'  '  lag- 
gard,' '  braggard,'  now  spelt  '  braggart,'  '  sluggard,' 
'  buzzard,'  '  bastard,'  '  wizard,'  may  be  taken  as  sur- 
viving specimens  ;  '  blinkard'  (Homilies)  ;  '  dizzard' 
(Burton);  'dullard'  (Udal)  ;  '  musard'  (Chaucer); 
'  puggard,'  '  stinkard'  (Ben  Jonson),  '  haggard,'  in  the 
sense  of  good-for-nothing  hawk,  as  extinct. 

Thus,  too,  there  is  a  very  curious  province  of  our 

*  Jamieson's  Dicllonary  gives  a  large  number  of  words  with  this 
termination  which  I  should  suppose  were  always  peculiar  to  Scotland, 
vxs  'bangsome,'  that  is,  quarrelsome,  'freaksome,'  'drysome,*  'gro'i- 
some'  (the  German  'grausam'), 

6* 


130        DIMINUTIONS   OF   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

language,  in  which  we  were  once  so  rich,  that  exten- 
sive losses  here  have  failed  to  make  us  poor  ;  so  many 
of  its  words  still  surviving,  even  after  as  many  or 
more  have  disappeared.  I  refer  to  those  double  words 
which  either  contain  within  themselves  a  strong  rhy- 
ming modulation  —  such,  for  example,  as  '  willy-nilly,' 
'  hocus-pocus,'  '  helter-skelter,'  '  tag-rag,'  '  namby- 
pamby,'  '  pell-mell,'  '  hodge-podge  ;'  or  with  a  slight 
difference  from  this,  though  belonging  to  the  same 
group,  those  of  which  the  characteristic  feature  is  not 
this  internal  likeness  with  initial  unlikeness,  but  ini- 
tial likeness  with  internal  unlikeness ;  not  rhyming, 
but  strongly  alliterative,  and  in  every  case  with  a 
change  of  the  interior  vowel  from  a  weak  into  a  strong, 
generally  from  i  into  aovo ;  as  '  shilly-shally,' '  mingle- 
mangle,'  '  tittle-tattle,' '  prittle-prattle,' '  riff-raff,' '  see- 
saw,' '  slip-slop.'  No  one  who  is  not  quite  out  of  love 
with  the  homelier  yet  more  vigorous  portions  of  the 
language,  but  will  acknowledge  the  life  and  strength 
which  there  is  often  in  these  and  in  others  still  cur- 
rent among  us.  But  of  the  same  sort  what  vast  num- 
bers have  fallen  out  of  use,  some  so  fallen  out  of  all 
remembrance  that  it  may  be  difficult  almost  to  find 
credence  for  them  !  Thus,  take  of  rhyming  the  follow- 
ing :  '•  hugger-mugger,'  '  hurly-burly,'  '  kicksy-wicksy' 
(all  in  Shakespeare)  ;  '  hibber-gibber,'  '  rusty-dusty,' 
'  horrel-lorrel,'  '  slaump-paump'  (all  in  Gabriel  Har- 
vey),' royster-doyster'  (old  play), '  hoddy-doddy'  (Ben 
Jonson)  ;  while  of  alliterative  might  be  instanced  these; 

*  skimble-skamble,'  '  bibble-babble'  (both  in  Shake- 
speare), '  twittle-twattle,'  '  kim-kam'  (both  in  Hol- 
land), 'hab-nab'  (Lilly),  'trim-tram,'   '  trish-trash,' 

*  swish-swash'  (all  in  Gabriel  Harvey),  '  whim  wham' 


WORDS   UNDER   BAN.  131 

(Beaumont  and  Fletcher), '  mizz-mazz'  (Locke),  ••  snip- 
snap'  (Pope),  '  flim-flam'  (Swift),  '  tric-trac,'  and 
others. 

Again,  there  was  once  a  whole  family  of  words, 
whereof  the  greater  number  are  now  under  ban ; 
which  seem  to  have  been  formed  at  one  time  almost 
at  pleasure,  the  only  condition  being  that  the  combi- 
nation should  be  a  happy  one  —  I  mean  all  those  sin- 
gularly expressive  words  formed  by  a  combination  of 
verb  and  substantive,  the  former  governing  the  latter  ; 
as  *  scarecrow,'  ^  telltale,'  '  scapegrace,'  '  turncoat,' 
'  turntail,'  '  skinflint,'  '  spendthrift,'  '  spitfire,'  *  lick- 
spittle,' '  daredevil'  (=  wagehals),  '  makebate'  (= 
storenfried),  '  marplot,'  '  killjoy.'  These,  with  a  cer- 
tain number  of  others,  have  held  their  ground,  and 
may  be  said  to  be  still  more  or  less  in  use ;  but  what 
a  number  more  are  forgotten  !  —  and  yet,  though  not 
always  elegant,  they  constituted  a  very  vigorous  por- 
tion of  our  language,  and  preserved  some  of  its  most 
genuine  idioms.  It  could  not  well  be  otherwise  ;  they 
are  almost  all  words  of  abuse,  and  the  abusive  words 
of  a  language  are  always  among  the  most  picturesque, 
and  vigorous,  and  imaginative,  which  it  affords.  The 
whole  man  speaks  out  in  them,  and  often  the  man  un- 
der the  influence  of  passion  and  excitement,  which 
always  lend  force  and  fire  to  his  speech.  Let  me 
remind  you  of  a  few  of  them :  '  smellfeast,'  if  not  a 
better,  is  yet  a  more  graphic,  word  than  our  foreign 
parasite ;  as  graphic,  indeed,  for  us  as  rps-xiSsiirvo;  to 
Greek  ears ;  '  clawback'  (Hacket)  is  a  stronger,  if  not 
a  more  graceful,  word  than  flatterer  or  sycophant ; 
'  tosspot'  (Fuller),  or  less  frequently  '  reelpot'  (Mid- 
dleton),  is  a  word  which  tells  its  own  tale  as  well  as 


132        DIMINUTIONS   OP  THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

.drunkard;  and  '  pinchpenny'  (Holland),  or  '  nipfar- 
thing'  (Drant),  as  well  as  or  better  than  miser.  And 
then  what  a  multitude  more  there  were  in  like  kind : 

*  spintext/  '  lacklatin,'  '  mumblematins,'  all  applied  to 
ignorant  cleriQs  ;  '  bitesheep'  (a  favorite  word  with 
Foxe)  to  such  of  these  as  were  rather  wolves  tearing, 
than  shepherds  feeding,  the  flock  ;  *  slipstring'  (=  pen- 
dard,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher),  '  slipgibbet,'  '  scape- 
gallows  ;'  all  names  given  to  those  who,  however 
they  might  have  avoided,  were  justly  owed  to  the 
gallows. 

How  many  of  these  words  occur  in  Shakespeare ! 
The  following  list  makes  no  pretence  to  complete- 
ness :  '  martext,' '  carry  tale,' '  pleaseman,' '  scarecrow,' 
'  sneakcup,'  '  mumblenews,'  '  wantwit,'  '  lackbrain,' 
'  lackbeard,' '  lacklove,' '  ticklebrain,' '  cutpurse,' '  cut- 
throat,' '  crackhemp,'  '  breedbate'  (the  old  French 
'  attise-feu,'  or  '  attise-querelle'),  '  swingebuckler,' 
'  pickpurse,'  '  pickthank,'  '  picklock,'  '  breakvow,' 
'  breakpromise,'  '  makepeace  ;'  this  last  and  '  telltruth' 
(Fuller)  being  the  only  ones  in  the  whole  collection 
wherein  reprobation  or  contempt  is  not  implied.  Nor 
is  the  list  exhausted  yet :  there  are  further, '  dingthrift' 
(==  prodigal,   Herrick),    '  wastegood'     (Cotgrave), 

•  wastethrift'  (Beaumont  and  Fletcher),  '  scape  thrift,' 
'swashbuckler'  (both  in  Holinshed),  '  shakebuckler' 
(Becon),  '  crackrope'  (Howell),  '  waghalter'  (Cot- 
grave),  '  blabtale'  (Hacket),  '  getnothing'  (Adams), 
'  findfault'  (Florio),  '  marpr  elate,'  '  spitvenom,'  'kill- 
man'  (Chapman),  'lackland,'  '  pickquarrel ,'  'pick- 
faults,'  '  makefray'  (Bishop Hall), '  makedebate'  (Rich- 
ardson's Letters)^  '  turntippet,'  '  swillbowl'  (Stubbs), 
'  smellsmock,' '  cumberworld'  (Drayton), '  curryfavor/ 


GROUP   OP  DISUSED   WORDS.  133 

'  clutclifist,'  *  sharkguir  (both  in  Middleton),  *  make- 
sport'  (Fuller),  '  hangdog'  Q'  Herod's  hang-do^s  m 
the  tapestry,"  Pope),  ^catchpoll,'  ^makeshift'  (used 
not  impersonally,  as  now),  '  pickgoose'  ("the  book- 
worm was  never  but  a  pickfroose'' )^  '  killcow'  (these 
last  tliree  in  Gabriel  Harvey),  '  rakeshame'  (Milton, 
prose),  with  others  which  it  will  be  convenient  to 
omit.  '  Rakehell,'  which  used  to  be  spelt '  rakeF  or 
'  rakle'  (Chaucer),  a  good  English  word,  would  be 
only  through  an  error  included  in  this  list,  although 
Cowper,  when  he  writes  '•  rakehell'  (^"  rakp-hell  baro- 
net"), evidently  regarded  it  as  belonging  to  this 
group.* 

Perhaps  one  of  the  most  frequent  causes  which  leads 
to  the  disuse  of  words  is  this :  in  some  inexplicable 
way  there  comes  to  be  attached  something  of  ludi- 
crous, or  coarse,  or  vulgar  to  them,  out  of  a  feeling 
of  which  they  are  no  longer  used  in  earnest,  serious 
writing,  and  at  the  same  time  fall  out  of  the  discourse 
of  those  who  desire  to  speak  elegantly.  Not,  indeed, 
that  this  degradation  which  overtakes  words  is  in  all 

*  The  mistake  is  far  garlier :  it  is  clear  that  at  a  very  early  time 
tlie  sound  snugestcd  first  the  scn&e,  and  then  this  spelling.  Thus, 
Stanihurst,  Description  of  Inland,  p.  28 :  "They  are  taken  for  no 
better  than  rakchels,  or  the  devil's  black  guard ;"  and  often  elsewhere. 
Let  me  observe,  before  quitting  the  matter,  that  many  languages  have 
groups  of  words  formed  upon  the  same  scheme,  although,  singularly 
enough,  they  are  altogether  absent  from  the  Anglo-Saxon.  (J.  Grimtn, 
Deutsche  Graitun.,\o\.  ii.,  p.  976.)  The  Spaniards  have  a  great  many 
very  expressive  words  of  this  formation.  Thus,  with  allusion  to  the 
great  struggle  in  which  Christian  Spain  was  engaged  for  so  many 
centuries,  a  '^'aunting  braggart  is  a  '  matamoros/  a  'slaymoor;'  he  ia 
a  '  matasioie,'  a  '  slaysevcn ;'  <* '  perdonavidas,'  a  '  sparelives.'  Others 
jnay  be  added  to  these,  as  'azotacalles,'  '  picapleytos,'  'saltaparedes/ 
*  rompe-esquinas/  'ganapan,'    oascatreguas.' 


134        DIMINUTIONS    OP   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

cases  inexplicable.  The  unheroic  character  of  most 
men's  minds,  with  their  consequent  intolerance  of  that 
heroic  which  they  can  not  understand,  is  constantly  at 
work,  too  often  with  success,  in  taking  down  words 
of  nobleness  from  their  high  pitch,  and,  as  the  most 
effectual  way  of  doing  this,  in  casting  an  air  of  mock- 
heroic  about  them.  Thus,  '  to  dub,'  a  word  resting 
on  one  of  the  noblest  usages  of  chivalry,  has  now 
something  of  ludicrous  about  it ;  so,  too,  has  '  doughty.' 
They  belong  to  that  serio-comic,  mock-heroic  diction, 
the  multiplication  of  which,  as  of  all  parodies  on  great- 
ness, is  always  a  sign  of  evil  augury  for  a  nation,  is  a 
present  sign  of  evil  augury  for  our  own. 

'  Pate'  in  the  sense  of  head  is  now  comic  or  igno- 
ble ;  it  was  not  so  once,  as  is  plain  from  its  occurrence 
in  the  Prayer-Book  version  of  the  Psalms  (Ps.  vii.  17) ; 
as  little  was  '  noddle,'  which  occurs  in  one  of  the  few 
poetical  passages  in  Hawes.  The  same  may  be  said 
of  '  sconce,'  in  this  sense  at  least ;  of '  nowl'  or  '  noil,' 
which  Wiclif  uses  ;  of  '  slops'  for  trousers  (Marlowe's 
Lucan)  ;  of  '  smug,'  which  once  meant  no  more  than 
adorned  ("  the  smug  bridegroom,"  Shakespeare).  *  To 
nap,'  in  the  sense  of  to  slumber  lightly,  is  now  a  word 
without  dignity  ;  while  yet  in  Wiclif 's  Bible  it  is  said, 
"  Lo  he  schall  not  nappe^  nether  slepe  that  kepeth 
Israel"  (Ps.  cxxi.  4).  'To  punch,'  '  to  thump,'  both 
which,  and  in  serious  writing,  occur  in  Spenser,  could 
not  now  obtain  the  same  use,  nor  yet  to  '  wag,'  or  to 
'  buss  ;'  neither  would  any  one  now  say  that  at  Lystra 
Barnabas  and  Paul  "  rent  their  clothes  and  skipped 
out  among  the  people"  (Acts  xiv.  14),  which  is  the 
language  that  Wiclif  employs.  We  should  scarcely 
call  now  a  seduction  of  Satan  a  '•'flam  of  the  devil" 


COARSENESS   ATTACHED   TO   WORDS.  135 

(Henry  More).  It  is  not  otherwise  in  regard  of 
phrases.  In  the  glorious  ballad  of  Chevy  C/m56?,  which 
Sir  Philip  Sidney  declared  he  could  never  hear  but 
"  it  stirred  him  like  a  trumpet,"  a  noble  warrior  whose 
legs  are  hewn  off  is  described  as  being  "  in  doleful 
dumps ;"  just  as,  in  Holland's  Livy^  the  Romans  are 
set  forth  as  being  "  in  the  dumps"  as  a  consequence 
of  their  disastrous  defeat  at  Cannae.  And  in  the  ser- 
mons of  Barrow,  who  certainly  intended  to  write  an 
elevated  style,  and  did  not  seek  familiar,  still  less  vul 
gar,  expressions,  we  yet  meet  such  terms  as  '  to  rate,' 
'  to  snub,'  '  to  gull,'  '  to  pudder,'  '  dumpish,'  and  the 
like ;  which  we  may  confidently  affirm  were  not  vul- 
gar when  he  used  them. 

Then,  too,  the  advance  of  refinement  causes  words 
to  be  foregone  which  are  felt  to  speak  too  plainly.  It 
is  not  here  merely  that  one  age  has  more  delicate 
ears  than  another  ;  this  is  something  ;  but  besides  this, 
and  even  if  this  delicacy  were  at  a  standstill,  there 
would  still  be  a  continual  process  going  on,  by  which 
the  words,  which  for  a  certain  while  have  been  em- 
ployed to  designate  coarse  or  disagreeable  facts  or 
things,  would  be  disallowed  or  at  least  relinquished 
to  the  lower  classes  of  society,  and  others  assumed  in 
their  place.  The  former  by  long  use  being  felt  to 
have  come  into  too  direct  and  close  relation  with  that 
which  they  designate,  to  summon  it  up  too  distinctly 
before  the  mind's  eye,  they  are  thereupon  exchanged 
for  other  words,  which,  at  first  at  least,  indicate  more 
lightly  and  at  a  greater  distance  the  oftensive  thing, 
rather  hint  and  suggest  than  paint  and  describe  it: 
although  by-and-by  these  new  will  be  themselves  also 
probably  discarded,  and  for  the  same  reasons  which 


136        DIMINUTIONS   OF   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

brought  about  the  dismissal  of  those  which  they  re- 
placed. It  lies  in  the  necessity  of  things  that  I  must 
leave  this  part  of  my  subject  without  illustration.* 

Thus  much  in  respect  of  the  words,  and  the  charac- 
ter of  tlie  words,  which  we  have  lost  or  let  go.  In 
regard  of  these,  if  a  language,  as  it  travels  onward, 
loses  some,  it  also  acquires  others,  and  probably  many 
more  than  those  which  it  loses ;  they  are  leaves  on 
the  tree  of  language,  of  which,  if  some  fall  away,  a 
new  succession  takes  their  place.  But  it  is  not  so,  as 
I  already  observed,  with  the  forms  or  powers  of  a 
language  ;  that  is,  with  the  various  inflections,  moods, 
duplicate  or  triplicate  formation  of  tenses,  which  those 
who  speak  the  language  come  gradually  to  perceive 
that  they  can  do  without,  and  therefore  cease  to  em- 
ploy ;  seeking  to  suppress  grammatical  intricacies,  and 
to  obtain  grammatical  simplicity  and  so  far  as  possi- 
ble a  pervading  uniformity,  sometimes  even  at  the 
hazard  of  letting  go  that  which  had  real  worth,  and 
contributed  to  the  more  lively,  if  not  to  the  clearer, 
setting  forth  of  the  inner  thought  or  feeling  of  the 
mind.  Here  there  is  only  loss,  with  no  compensating 
gain  ;  or  at  least  only  diminution,  never  addition.  In 
regard  of  these  inner  forces  and  potencies  of  a  lan- 
guage, there  is  no  creative  energy  at  work  in  its  later 
periods  —  in  any,  indeed,  but  quite  the  earliest.     They 

*  As  not,  however,  turning  on  a  very  coarse  matter,  and  illustrating 
the  subject  with  infinite  wit  and  humor,  I  might  refer  the  Spanish 
scholar  to  the  discussion  between  Don  Quixote  and  his  squire  on  the 
dismissal  of  '  regoldar'  from  the  language  of  good  society,  and  the 
substitution  of  '  erutar'  in  its  room.  [Don  Quixote,  iv.,  vii.,  43.)  In  a 
letter  of  Cicero  to  Pa;tus  {H^m.,  ix.,  22)  there  is  a  subtile  and  inter, 
esting  disquisition  on  forbidden  words  and  their  philosophy. 


GENDERS,   CASES,   ETC.  137 

are  not  as  the  leaves,  but  may  be  likened  to  the  stem 
and  leading  branches  of  a  tree,  whose  shape,  mould, 
and  direction,  are  determined  at  a  very  early  period 
of  its  growth :  and  which  accident  or  other  causes 
may  diminish,  but  which  can  never  be  increased.  I 
have  already  slightly  alluded  to  a  very  illustrious  ex- 
ample of  this,  namely,  to  the  dropping  of  the  dual 
number  in  the  Greek  language.  When  the  New  Tes- 
tament was  written,  it  had  so  fallen  out  of  the  com- 
mon dialect  in  which  that  is  composed,  that,  as  is 
probably  well  known  to  us  all,  no  single  example  of 
it  occurs  throughout  all  the  books  of  the  New  Cove* 
nant.  Nor,  in  respect  of  this  very  form,  is  this  an 
isolated  case.  There  is  no  dual  in  the  modern  Ger- 
man, Danish,  or  Swedish;  in  the  old  German  and 
Norse  there  was. 

How  much  in  this  respect  for  better  or  for  worse 
we  have  got  rid  of.  How  bare,  whether  too  bare  is 
another  question,  we  have  stripped  ourselves,  I  need 
hardly  tell  you ;  what  simplicity  reigns  in  the  present 
English,  as  compared  with  the  old  Anglo-Saxon. 
That  had  six  declensions,  our  present  English  but 
one ;  that  had  three  genders,  English,  if  we  except 
one  or  two  words,  has  none ;  that  formed  the  genitive 
in  a  variety  of  ways,  we  only  in  one ;  and  the  same 
fact  meets  us,  wherever  we  compare  the  grammars  of 
the  two  languages.  At  the  same  time,  it  can  scarcely 
be  repeated  too  often,  that  in  the  estimate  of  the  gain 
or  loss  thereupon  ensuing,  we  must  by  no  means  put 
certainly  to  loss  everything  which  the  language  has 
dismissed,  any  more  than  everything  to  gain  which  it 
has  acquired.  It  is  no  real  wealth  in  a  language  to 
have  needless  and  superfluous  forms.     They  are  often 


138        DIMINUTIONS   OF   THE    ENGLISH    LANGUAGE. 

an  embarrassment  and  an  incumbrance  to  it  rather 
than  a  help.  The  Finnish  language  has  fourteen 
cases  ;  I  know  nothing  further  than  the  fact ;  but  feel 
quite  sure  that  it  can  not  do  more,  nor  indeed  at  all 
as  much,  with  its  fourteen  as  the  Greek  is  able  to  do 
with  its  five. 

And  therefore  it  seems  to  me  that  some  words  of 
Otfried  Miilh  r,  in  many  ways  admirable,  do  yet  exag- 
gerate the  losses  consequent  on  the  reduction  of  the 
forms  of  a  language.  "  It  may  be  observed,"  he  says, 
"  that  in  the  lapse  of  ages,  from  the  time  that  the 
progress  of  language  can  be  observed,  grammatical 
forms,  such  as  the  signs  of  cases,  moods,  and  tenses, 
have  never  been  increased  in  number,  but  have  been 
constantly  diminishing.  The  history  of  the  Romance, 
as  well  as  of  the  Germanic  languages,  shows  in  the 
clearest  manner  how  a  grammar,  once  powerful  and 
copious,  has  been  gradually  weakened  and  impover- 
ished, until  at  last  it  preserves  only  a  few  fragments 
of  its  ancient  inflections.  Now  there  is  no  doubt  that 
this  luxuriance  of  grammatical  forms  is  not  an  essential 
part  of  a  language,  considered  merely  as  a  vehicle  of 
thought.  It  is  well  known  that  the  Chinese  language, 
which  is  merely  a  collection  of  radical  words  destitute 
of  grammatical  forms,  can  express  even  philosophical 
ideas  with  tolerable  precision ;  and  the  English,  which, 
from  the  mode  of  its  formation  by  a  mixture  of  differ- 
ent tongues,  has  been  stripped  of  its  grammatical  in- 
flections more  completely  than  any  other  European 
language,  seems  nevertheless,  even  to  a  foreigner,  to 
be  distinguished  by  its  energetic  eloquence.  All  this 
must  be  admitted  by  every  unprejudiced  inquirer;  but 
yet  it  can  not  be  overlooked,  that  this  copiousness  of 


TERMINATION   IN   ESS.  139 

grammatical  forms,  and  the  fine  shades  of  meaning 
which  they  express,  evince  a  nicety  of  observation, 
and  a  faculty  of  distinguishing,  which  unquestionably 
prove  that  the  race  of  mankind  among  whom  these 
languages  arose  was  characterized  by  a  remarkable 
correctness  and  subtilty  of  thought.  Nor  can  any 
modern  European,  who  forms  iu  his  mind  a  lively 
image  of  the  classical  languages  in  their  ancient  gram- 
matical luxuriance,  and  compares  them  with  his  mother- 
tongue,  conceal  from  himself  that  in  the  ancient  lan- 
guages the  words,  with  their  inflections,  clothed  as  j^ 
were  with  muscles  and  sinews,  come  forward  like  living 
bodies,  full  of  expression  and  character,  while  in  the 
modern  tongues  the  words  seem  shrunk  up  into  mere 
skeletons."* 

I  can  not  think  but  that  this  is  stated  somewhat 
too  strongly  ;  however,  when  my  lecture  is  concluded, 
you  will  be  able  better  to  judge  for  yourselves.  And 
here  I  am  sure  that  you  will  greatly  prefer  that  I 
should  address  myself  to  the  consideration  not  of  forms 
which  the  language  has  relinquished  long  ago,  but 
mainly  to  those  which  it  is  relinquishing  now ;  such 
as,  touching  us  more  nearly,  will  have  a  far  more, 
lively  interest  for  us  all.  Let  me  then  instance  one 
of  these.  The  female  termination  which  we  employ 
in  certain  words,  such  as  from  ^e^ir'  '  heiress,'  from 
' prophet' ^^"^ophetess,'  from  'sorcerer'  'sorceress,'  was 
once  far  more  widely  extended  than  it  nowli ;  the 
words  which  retain  it  are  daily  becoming  fewer.  It 
has  already  fallen  away  in  so  many,  and  is  evidently 
becoming  of  more  unfrequent  use  in  so  many  others, 
that,  if  we  may  augur  of  the  future  from  the  analogy 

*  Literature  of  Greece,  p.  5. 


140        DIMINUTIONS   OF   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

of  tlie  past,  it  will  one  day  altogether  disappear  from 

the  language.    Thus  all  these  occur  in  Wiclif 's  Bible  : 

techeress'  as  the  female  teacher  (2  Chron.  xxxv.  25) 

frienHess'  (Prov.  vii.  4)  ;  '  servantess'  (Gen.  xvi.  2) 

leperess'  (=saltatrix,  Ecclus.  ix.  4);  '  neighboress 

(Exod.  iii.  22);  '  sinneress'  (Luke  vii.  37);  'devour- 

ess'  (Ezek.  xxxvi.   13) ;  '  spousess'  (Prov.  v.  19) ; 

'  thralless'  (Jer.  xxxvi.  16)  ;  '  dwelleress'  (Jer.  xxi. 

13) ;  '  waileress'  (Jer.  ix.  17)  ;  '  cheseress'  (=  elec- 

trix,  Wisd.  viii.  4);  ^^mgeress,'  '  breakeress/  ^  wait^ 

eress/  this  last  indeed  having  recently  come  up  again. 

Add  to  these  '  chideress'  the  female  chider,  '  herdess,' 

*  constabless,'  '  moveress,'  '  soudaness'  (=  sultana), 
'  guideress,'  'charmeress'  (all  in  Chaucer);  and  others, 
which  however  we  may  have  now  let  them  fall,  reached 
to  far  later  periods  of  the  language  ;  thus  ^  vanqueress' 
(Fabyan),   '  poisoneress'    (Greneway)  ;    '.  pedleressj_^ 

*  championess,' '  vassaless,' '  avengeress,' '  warrioress,' 
'vietoress,'  'creatress'  (all  in  Spenser); '  fornicatress,' 

*  cloistress'  (both  in  Shakespeare) ;  'vowess'  (Holin- 
shed);  '  ministress,'  '  flatteress'  (both  in  Holland); 
'  saintess,'  '  deviless'  (both  in  Sir  T.  Urquhart);  'hero- 
.ess,'  '  dragoness,'  '  butleress'  (all  in  Chapman)  ;  '  cli- 

entcss,'  '  pandress'  (both  in  Middleton) ;  '  papess' 
(Bishop  Hall)  ;  '  soldieress,'  '  guardianess,'  'votaress' 
(all  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher) ;  comfortress'  (Ben 
Jonson);  '  soveraintess'  (Sylvester);  '  solicitress,'  *im- 
postress,'  '  buildress,'  '  intrudress,'  (all  in  Fuller) ; 
*^1danceress'  (Prynne); '  commandress'  (Burton); '  mon- 
archess'  (Drayton)  ;  '  discipless'  (Speed)  ;  '  auditress,' 
'"caleress,'  '  chantress,'  '  tyranness'  (all  in  Milton) ; 
'  citess,'  '  divineress'  (both  in  Dryden) ;  '  deaness' 
(Stone); '  detractress'  (Addison);  '  hucsteress'  (How- 


TERMINATION   IN    'STER.'  141 

ell)  ;  '  tutoress'  (Shaftesbury)  ;  '  farmeress'  (Lord 
Peterborougli,  Letter  to  Fope}  ;  *  laddess,'  which  how- 
ever still  survives  in  the  contracted  form  of  '  lass ;' 
with  more  which,  I  doubt  not,  it  would  not  be  very 
hard  to  bring  together. 

Exactly  the  same  thing  has  happened  with  another 
feminine  affix,  which  was  once  used  in  a  far  greater 
number  of  words  than  now.  I  mean  *  ster'  in  the  room 
of  '  er,'  to  indicate  that  a  noun  before  applied  to  the 
male  was  now  intended  to  be  transferred  and  applied 
to  the  female.*  '  Spinner,'  taking  the  feminine  form 
of  '  spinster,'  furnishes  an  excellent  example  of  what 
I  mean,  and  perhaps  the  only  one  in  which  both  the 
forms  still  remain  in  use.  Formerly,  however,  there 
were  a  vast  number  of  these  ;  thus  '  baker'  had  '  bake- 
ster,'  being  the  female  who  baked ;  '  brewer'  '  brew- 
ster  ;' '  sewer' '  sewster  ;' '  reader' '  roadster  ;' '  seamer' 
'  seamster ;' '  fruiterer' '  fruitester  ;' '  tumbler' '  tumbles- 
ter'  (this  and  the  preceding  both  in  Chaucer)  ;  '  knit- 
ter' knitster'  (a  word  which,  I  have  understood,  is 
still  alive  in  Devon).  And  further  we  may  observe, 
and  it  is  a  striking  example  of  the  richness  of  a  lan- 
guage in  forms  at  the  earlier  stages  of  its  existence, 
that  not  a  few  of  the  words  which  had,  as  we  have 
just  seen,  a  feminine  termination  in  '  ess,'  had  also  a 
second  feminine  in  '  ster.'  Thus  '  daunser,'  beside 
'  daunseress,'  had  also  '  daunster'  (Ecclus.  ix.  4) ; 
'  wailer,'  beside  *  waileress,'  had  '  wailster'  (Jer.  ix. 
17);  'dweller'  'dwelstcr'  (Jer.  xxi.  13);  and  'singer' 
'  singster'   (2  Kin.   xix.   85) ;  so  too,  '  chider'  had 

*  On  this  termination  see  J.  Grimm's  Deutsche  Gramm.,  vol.  ii. 
p.  134  ;  vol.  iii.  p.  339. 


142        DIMINUTIONS  OF  THE    ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

'  chidster'  (Chaucer),  as  well  as  '  chideress/  with 
others  that  might  be  named. 

I  know  there  are  some  who  call  into  question  the 
assertion  just  made  that  the  termination  '  ster'  did 
once  announce  invariably  a  female  doer.  It  may  be, 
and  indeed  has  been,  urged  that  the  existence  of  such 
words  as  '  seamstress,'  '  songstress,'  is  decisive  evi- 
dence that  the  ending  '  ster'  of  itself  was  not  counted 
sufficient  to  designate  persons  as  female  ;  for  if,  it  has 
been  said,  ^seams^er'  and  '  song^^er'  had  been  felt  \o 
be  already  feminine,  no  one  would  have  ever  thought 
of  doubling  on  this,  and  adding  a  second  female  ter- 
mination ;  '  seam.9^r6'5.9,'  '  songstress.^  But  all  which 
can  justly  be  concluded  from  hence  is,  that  when  this 
final  '  ess'  was  added  to  these  already  feminine  forms, 
and  examples  of  it  will  not,  I  think,  be  found  till  a 
comparative  late  period  of  the  language,  the  true  prin- 
ciple and  law  of  the  words  had  been  lost  sight  of  and 
forgotten.* 

The  same  may  be  said  in  respect  of  such  other  of 
these  feminine  forms  as  are  now  applied  to  men,  such  as 
*  gamester,' '  youngster,'  ^  oldster,' '  drugster'  (South), 
'  huckster,'  '  hackster'  (=  swordsman,  or  grassator, 
Milton,  prose),  '  teamster,'  '  throwster,'  '  rhymester,' 
''Y>^nster^  ( Spectator),  'tapster,'  'whipster'  (Shake- 

*  The  earliest  example  which  Richardson  gives  of  *  seamstress'  is 
from  Gay,  of  'songstress,'  from  Thomson.  I  find,  however,  'semp- 
stress' in  the  translation  of  '  Olcarius'  Voyages,  and  Travels,  1669, 
p,  43,  It  is  quite  certain  that  as  late  as  Ben  Jonson,  '  seamster'  and 
'songster*  expressed  the  female  seamer  and  singer;  a  single  passage 
from  his  Masque  of  Christmas  is  evidence  to  this.  One  of  the  children 
of  Christmas  there  is  "  Wassel,  like  a  neat  sempster  and  songster;  her 
page  bearing  a  brown  bowl."  Compare  a  passage  from  Holland's 
Leaguer,  1632  :  "A  tyre-woman  of  phantastical  ornaments,  a  sempster 
for  ruifes,  cuffes,  smocks,  and  waistcoats." 


TERMINATION   IN    '  STER.'  143 

speare), '  trickster.'  Either  like  '  teamster'  and '  pun 
ster,'  the  words  first  came  into  existence  and  assumed 
this  form,  when  the  true  significance  of  the  form  was  al- 
together lost  ;*  or  like '  tapster,'  which  is  female  in  Chau- 
cer ("  the  gay  tapstere^^),  or  '  bakester,'  at  this  day 
used  in  Scotland  for  '  baker,'  as  '  dyester'  for  '  dyer,'  the 
word  did  originally  belong  of  right  and  exclusively  to 
women ;  but  with  the  gradual  transfer  of  the  occupa- 
tion to  men,  joined  to  an  increasing  forgetfulness  of 
what  this  termination  implied,  there  went  also  a  trans- 
fer of  the  name  ;t  just  as  in  other  words,  and  out  of 
the  same  causes,  exactly  the  converse  has  found  place ; 
and  '  baker'  or  '  brewer,'  not  '  bakester'  or  '  brewster,' 
would  be  now  in  England  applied  to  the  female  ba- 
king or  brewing.  So  entirely  has  this  power  of  the 
language  now  been  foregone,  that  it  survives  more 
apparently  than  really  even  in  '  spinner'  and  '  spinster,' 
which  I  adduced  just  now  as  the  only  words  in  which 
formally  it  continued  ;  seeing  that  '  spinster'  has  now 

*  This  w  as  about  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.  In  proof  of  the  confu- 
sion which  reigned  on  the  subject  in  Shakespeare's  time,  see  his  use 
of  *  spinster'  as  =  '  spinner,'  the  man  spinning,  Henry  VIII.,  act  i., 
scene  ii. ;  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  is  the  same  at  Othello,  act  i., 
scene  i.  And  a  little  later,  in  Howell's  Vocabulary,  1659,  'spinner* 
and  '  spinster'  are  both  referred  to  the  male  sex,  and  the  barbarous 
*spinstress*  invented  for  the  female. 

1 1  have  introduced  '  huckster,'  as  will  be  observed,  in  this  list.  I 
certainly  can  not  produce  any  passage  in  which  it  is  employed  as  the 
female  pedler.  "We  have  only,  however,  to  keep  in  mmd  the  exist- 
ence of  the  verb  '  to  huck^'  in  the  sense  of  to  peddle  (it  is  used  by 
Bishop  Andrews),  and  at  the  same  not  to  let  the  present  spelling  of 
'hawker'  mslcad  us,  and  we  shall  confidently  recognise  'hucker'  (the 
German  '  hoker'  or  '  hocker')  in  hawker ;  that  is,  the  man  who  '  bucks,' 
'hawks,'  or  peddles,  as  in  'huckster'  the  female  who  does  the  same. 
When,  therefore,  Howell  and  others  employ  *  hucksteress,'  they  fall 
into  the  same  barbarous  excess  of  expression  whereof  we  are  all  guilty 
when  we  use  *  seamstress'  and  '  songstress.' 


144        DIMINUTIONS   OP   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

been  transferred  to  quite  another  meaning  than  that 
of  a  female  spinning,  whom,  as  well  as  the  male,  we 
should  designate  not  as  a  '  spinster,'  but  a  '  spinner.'* 
Let  me  observe  here,  in  confirmation  of  what  has 
just  been  asserted,  that  it  is  almost  incredible,  if 
wo  had  not  frequent  experience  of  the  fact,  how  soon 
and  how  easily  the  true  law  and  significance  of  some 
form,  which  has  never  ceased  to  be  in  everybody's 
mouth,  may  yet  be  wholly  lost  sight  of.  No  more 
curious  chapter  in  the  history  of  language  could  bo 
written  than  one  which  should  trace  the  violations  of 
analogy,  the  transgressions  of  the  most  primary  laws 
of  a  language,  which  often  follow  hereupon  ;  the  plu- 
rals like  '  welkin'  (=  T^olken,  the  clouds),  '  chicken,'! 
which  are  dealt  with  as  singulars  —  the  singulars,  like 

*  riches'  (richesse),^  'pease'  (pisum,  pois),||  'alms,' 

*  eaves,'  which  are  assumed  to  be  plurals. 

There  is  one  example  of  this,  familiar  to  us  all ; 
probably  so  familiar,  that  it  would  not  be  worth  while 
adverting  to  it,  if  it  did  not  illustrate,  as  no  other 
word  could,  this  forgetfulness  which  may  overtake  a 

*  Notes  and  Queries,  No.  157. 

t  When  Wallis  wrote,  it  was  only  beginning  to  be  forgotten  that 

*  chick'  was  the  singular,  and  '  chicken'  the  plural :  "  Sunt  qui  dicunt 
in  singulari  '  chicken,'  et  in  plurali  '  chickens ;' "  and  even  now  the 
words  are  in  many  country  parts  correctly  employed.  In  Sussex,  a 
correspondent  writes,  they  would  as  soon  think  of  saying  '  oxens'  as 
'  chickens.' 

i  See  Chaucer's  Romaunt  of  the  Rose,  1032,  where  Richesse,  "an 
high  lady  of  great  noblesse,"  is  one  of  the  persons  of  the  allegory. 
This  has  so  entirely  escaped  the  knowledge  of  Ben  Jonson,  English 
scholar  as  he  was,  that  in  his  Grammar  he  cites  '  riches'  as  an  example 
of  an  English  word  wanting  a  singular. 

jl  "  Set  shallow  brooks  to  surging  seas, 
An  orient  pearl  to  a  white  pease." 

Puttenhain. 


THE  ENGLISH  GENITIVE.  145 

whole  people  in  regard  of  the  true  meaning  of  a  gram- 
matical form  they  have  never  ceased  to  employ.  I 
allude  to  the  mistaken  assumption  that  the  '  s'  of  the 
genitive,  as  '  the  king's  countenance,'  was  merely  a 
more  rapid  way  of  pronouncing  '  the  king  his  counte- 
nance,' and  that  the  linal  '  s '  in  '  king's'  was  in  fact 
an  elided  '  his.'  This  explanation  for  a  long  time 
prevailed  almost  universally  ;  I  believe  there  are  many 
who  accept  it  still.  It  was  in  vain  that  here  and 
there  a  deeper  knower  of  our  tongue  protested  against 
this  "  monstrous  syntax,"  as  Ben  Jonson  in  his  Gram- 
mar justly  calls  it.*  It  was  in  vain  that  Wallis,  an- 
other English  scholar  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
pointed  out  in  his  Grammar  that  the  slightest  exami- 
nation of  the  facts  revealed  the  untenable  character 
of  this  explanation,  seeing  that  we  do  not  merely  say 
"  the  king-\s  countenance,"  but  "  the  queen^s  counte- 
nance ;"  and  in  this  case  the  final  '  s'  can  not  stand 
for  '  his,'  for  "  the  queen  his  countenance"  can  not  be 
intended.!  We  do  not  say  merely  "  the  child's  bread," 
but  "  the  children's  bread,"  where  it  is  no  less  impos- 
sible to  resolve  the  phrase  into  "  the  children  his 
bread."  J     Despite  of  these  protests  the  error  held  its 

*  It  is  curious  that,  despite  of  this  protest,  one  of  his  plays  has  for 
its  name,  Sejanus  his  Fall. 

t  Even  this  does  not  startle  Addison,  or  cause  him  any  misgiving; 
on  the  contrary,  he  boldly  asserts  {Spectator,  No.  135) :  "The  same 
single  letter  s  on  many  occasions  does  the  office  of  a  whole  word,  and 
represents  the  'his'  or  'her'  of  our  forefathers." 

X  Nothing  can  be  better  than  the  way  in  which  Wallis  disposes  of 
this  scheme,  although  less  successful  in  showing  what  this  *  s '  does 
mean  than  in  showing  what  it  can  not  mean  ( Gramm.  Ling.  Anglic, 
c.  V. :  "  Qui  autem  arbitrantur  illud  s,  loco  his  adjunctum  esse  (priori 
scilicet  parte  per  aphjiircsini  abscissa),  ideoque  apostrophi  notam  sem- 
per vol  pnigcndam  esse,  vel  saltern  subintelligendam,  oranino  errant. 

7 


146        DIMINUTIONS   OF  THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

ground.  It  seems  to  have  begun  early  in  the  sixteenth 
century :  you  can  hardly  open  a  book  printed  during 
the  seventeenth,  or  the  early  decades  of  the  eighteenth, 
but  you  will  find  often  this  *  5 '  in  the  actual  printing 
spread  out  into  '  his.'  The  books  of  scholars  are  not 
a  whit  clearer  of  the  mistake  than  those  of  others. 
Spenser,  Donne,  Fuller,  Jeremy  Taylor,  all  fall  into 
it ;  I  can  not  say  confidently  whether  Milton  does. 
Dryden  more  than  once  helps  out  his  verse  with  an 
additional  syllable  gained^  by  its  aid.  It  has  even 
forced  its  way  into  our  Prayer-Book  itself,  where  in 
the  "  Prayer  for  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men"  — 
added,  I  believe,  by  Bishop  Sanderson  at  the  last  re- 
vision of  the  Liturgy  in  1661 — we  are  bidden  to  say, 
"  And  this  we  beg  for  Jesus  Christ  his  sake."*  I 
need  hardly  tell  you  that  this  '  5 '  is  in  fact  the  one 
remnant  of  flection  surviving  in  the  singular  number 
of  our  English  noun  substantives  ;  it  is  the  sign  of  the 
genitive,  and  just  as  in  Latin  '  lapis'  makes  '  lapidis' 

Quaravis  enim  non  negem  quin  apostrophi  nota  commode  nonnun- 
quam  affigi  possit,  ut  ipsius  litter^e  s  usus  distinctius,  ubi  opus  est,  per- 
cipiatur;  ita  taraen  semper  fieri  debere,  autetiam  ideo  fieri  quia  vocem 
his  innuat  omuino  nego.  Adjungitur  enim  et  foeminarum  nominibus 
propriis,  et  substantivis  pluralibus,  ubi  vox  his  sine  soloecismo  locum 
habere  non  potest :  atque  etiam  in  posscssivis  ours,  yours,  theirs,  hers, 
ubi  vocem  his  innui  nemo  somniaret." 

*  I  can  not  think  that  it  would  exceed  the  authoiiry  of  our  university 
presses,  if  a  form  so  palpably  and  offensively  ungrammatical  were  re- 
moved from  the  Prayer-Books  which  they  put  forth,  as  I  have  no  doubt 
that  it  is  suppressed  by  many  of  the  clergy  in  tlie  reading.  They  would 
be  only  using  here  a  liberty  which  they  have  already  assumed  iii  the 
case  of  the  Bible.  In  all  earlier  editions  of  the  authorized  version  it 
stood  originally  at  I  Kings  xv.  24  :  "  Nevertheless  Asa  his  heart  was 
perfect  with  the  Lord;"  it  is  "Asa's  heart"  now.  In  the  same  way 
" Mordecai  his  matters"  (Esth.  iii.  4)  has  been  silently  changed  into 
Mordecai's  matters ;"  and  in  some  modern  editions,  but  not  in  all, 
"  Holofernes  his  head"  (Judith  xiii.  9)  into  "  Ho/ofernes'  head." 


UNGRAMMATICAL   FORM.  147 

in  the  genitive,  so  '  king,'  '  queen,'  ^  child,'  make  sev- 
erally *  kings,'  '  queens,'  '  childs'  —  the  comma,  an  ap- 
parent note  of  elision,  being  a  mere  modern  expedi- 
ent, "  a  late  refinement,"  as  Ash  calls  it,*  to  distin- 
guish the  genitive  singular  from  the  plural  cases. f 

I  can  not  leave  this  matter  of  the  forgetfulness  which 
may  overtake  a  whole  people  concerning  a  form  which 
they  have  been  always  using,  without  another  illustra- 
tion. There  is  a  phrase  which,  as  now  it  appears,  is 
grammatically  quite  unintelligible,  but  which  owes  its 
present  shape  to  this  same  fact,  namely,  that  men, 
having  forgotten  what  it  meant  at  the  first,  and  being 
therefore  perplexed  about  it,  have  supposed  they  must 
patch  it  up,  and  have  done  so  on  a  wrong  scheme. 
It  is  the  phrase  of  which,  in  this  line  from  Milton's 
Allegro — 

"  Many  a  youth  and  many  a  maid"  — 

you  have  a  twofold  example.  In  such  a  usage  as 
"  many  a  youth"  there  are  more  things  than  one  which 
can  scarcely  fail  to  strike  and  perplex  the  thoughtful 
student  of  English.  The  first  is  the  place  of  the  in- 
definite article,  namely,  between  the  adjective  and 
substantive ;  next,  that  it  is  not  lawful  to  change  this 
place,  and  bring  it  back  to  its  ordinary  position  ;  not 
to  say  "  a  many  youth,"  or  "  a  many  maid."  Then, 
further,  the  joining  of  '  many,'  an  adjective  of  num- 
ber, for  adjective  it  now  and  here  is,  with  '  youth'  and 
^  maid'  in  the  singular,  is  very  noticeable  ;  which  union 
nowhere  else  occurs  —  for,  withdraw  that  '  a,'  and  it 
is  not  lawful  to  say,  '  many  youth,'  or  '  many  maid,' 

*  In  a  good  note  on  the  matter,  which  finds  phice,  pa<;e  6,  in  the 
Comprehensive  Grammar  prefixed  to  his  Dictionary,  London,  1775. 
t  Sec  Grimm,  Deutsche  Cramm.,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  609,  944. 


148        DIMINUTIONS   OP   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

any  more  than  '  many  cow,'  or  '  many  tree.'  What 
is  the  explanation  of  all  this  ?  A  few  considerations 
will  give  it  to  us.  In  the  first  place,  then,  it  must  be 
observed  that '  many'  was  originally  a  substantive,  the 
old  French  '  mesgnee,'  '  mesnie,'  and  signified  a  house- 
hold, which  meaning  it  constantly  has  in  Wiclif  (Matt. 
xxiv.  45,  and  often),  and  retained  down  to  the  time 
of  Spenser,  as  in  this  line  from  the  Shepherd\s  Cal- 
endar : — 

"  Then  forth  he  fared  with  all  his  many  bad." 

We  still  recognise  its  character  as  a  substantive  in  the 
phrases  "  a  good  many"  "  a  great  many,"  as  in  old 
English  or  Scotch  even  "  a  few  many."*  In  the  next 
place,  the  syllable  or  letter  '  a'  is  the  ultimate  result 
of  almost  any  short  syllable  or  word  often  and  rapidly 
pronounced :  thus,  "  he  fell  asleep,"  that  is,  on  sleep ; 
"  a  God's  name,"  that  is,  in  God's  name ;  '  acorn," 
that  is,  oak-Qorn  :  and  in  the  same  way  '  a'  is  here  not 
the  indefinite  article,  but  the  final  residuum  of  the 
preposition  '  of.'  I  find  often  in  Wiclif  such  language 
as  this :  "  I  encloside  manye  of  seintis  [multos  sanc- 
torum] in  prisoun"  (Acts  xxvi.  10)  ;  and  there  can 
be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  such  a  phrase  as  "  many 
a  youth"  was  once  "  many  o/ youths,"  or  "  a  many  of 
youths."  By  much  use  '  of  was  worn  away  into  '  a  ;' 
this  was  then  assumed  to  be  the  indefinite  article,  that 
which  was  really  such  being  dropped  ;  and  '  youtlis' 
was  then  changed  into  '  youth'  to  match  ;  one  mistake, 
as  is  so  often  the  case,  being  propped  up  and  sought 

*  Richardson,  On  the  Study  of  Language,  p.  140,  a  very  instructive 
commentary  on  the  Diversions  of  Purl  ey. 


ADJECTIVES   IN   'EN.'  149 

to  be  rendered  plausible  by  a  second ;  and  thus  we 
arrive  at  our  present  strange  and  perplexing  idiom.* 
But  to  return.  We  may  notice  another  example 
of  this  tendency  to  dispense  with  inflection,  of  this 
endeavor  on  the  part  of  the  speakers  of  a  language 
to  reduce  its  forms  to  the  fewest  possible,  consistent 
with  the  accurate  communication  of  their  thoughts  to 
one  another,  in  the  fact  that  of  our  adjectives  in  '  en,' 
foraied  on  substantives,  and  denoting  the  material  or 
substance  of  which  anything  is  made,  some  have  gone, 
others  are  going  out  of  use ;  while  we  content  our- 
selves with  the  bare  juxtaposition  of  the  substantive 
itself,  as  sufficiently  expressing  our  meaning.  Thus, 
instead  of  ^'  g-olden  pin,"  we  say  ''  g-old  pin  ;"  instead 
of  "  earthen  works,"  we  say  "  earth-worksJ^  It  is 
true  that  in  the  case  of  these  two  adjectives,  '  golden' 
and  '  earthen,'  they  still  belong  to  our  living  speech, 
though  mainly  as  part  of  our  poetic  diction,  or  of  the 
solemn  and  thus  stereotyped  language  of  Scripture. 
Other,  however,  of  these  adjectives  have  become  obso- 
lete, and  have  nearly  or  quite  disappeared  from  the 
language,  although  the  epochs  of  their  disappearance 
are  very  different.  '  Rosen'  went  early  ;  I  know  no 
later  example  of  it  than  in  Chaucer  frosen  chape- 

*  It  will  follow  from  what  has  been  said  that  Tennyson's  words  in 
TTie  Miller's  Daughter  — 

'—  "  those  eyes, 

They  have  not  wept  a  many  tears"  — 

are  strictly  grammatical;  that  is,  "a  many  of  tears."  He  has,  in- 
deed, the  authori  y  of  our  old  dramatists  for  the  usage.  Thus  Mas 
sinner  :— 

"  Honesty  is  some  fiend,  and  frights  him  hence ; 
A  many  courtiers  love  it  not." 

Virgin  Martyr,  act  ii.,  scene  ii. 


150        DIMINUTIONS   OF   THE    ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

let").  '  Silvern'  stood  originally  in  Wiclif's  Bible 
('^  silverne  housis  to  Diane,"  Acts  xix.  24)  ;  but  al- 
ready in  the  second  recension  of  this  was  exchanged 
for  '  silver.'  '  Stonen'  is  in  Wiclif ;  '  hairen'  in  Wic- 
lif  and  in  Chaucer.  '  Tinnen'  occurs  in  Sylvester's 
Du  Bartas ;  where  also  we  meet  with  "  Jove's  milken 
alley,"  as  a  name  for  the  Via  Lactea ;  by  Bacon  also 
called,  not  "  The  M%,"  but  "  The  Milken  Way." 
In  the  coarse  polemics  of  the  Reformation  the  phrase 
"  breaden  god,"  provoked  by  the  Romish  doctrine  of 
transubstantiation,  was  of  frequent  employment,  and 
occurs  as  late  as  in  Oldham.  '*  Mothen  parchments" 
is  in  Fulke  ;  "  tivig-g-en  bottle"  m  Shakespeare  ;  '  yew- 
en,'  or,  according  to  earlier  spelling,  "  ewghen  bow," 
in  Spenser ;  "  cedarn  alley,"  "  azurn  sheen,"  both  in 
Milton ;  "  boxen  leaves"  in  Dryden  ;  "  a  treen  cup"  in 
Jeremy  Taylor ;  ''  a  glassen  breast,"  meaning  a  trans- 
parent one,  in  Whitlock  ;*  '  yarnen'  occurs  in  Turber- 
ville  ;  '  eldern'  I  have  seen,  but  only  in  an  old  diction- 
ary ;  *  hornen,'  for  of  horn,  is  still  in  provincial  use ; 
so,  too,  is  '  bricken.' 

It  is  true  that  a  good  number  of  these  adjectives  in 
'  en'  still  hold  their  ground ;  yet  the  roots  which  sus- 
tain even  these  we  may  note  on  closer  observation  as 
being  gradually  cut  away  from  beneath  them.  Thus, 
'  brazen'  may  at  first  sight  seem  as  strongly  estab- 
lished in  the  language  as  ever ;  yet  it  is  very  far  from 
so  being :  the  preparations  for  its  disappearance  are 
already  vigorously  at  work.  Even  now  it  only  lives 
in  a  tropical  and  secondary  sense,  as  ''  a  brazen  face  ;" 
or  if  in  a  literal  sense,  it  is  only,  as  was  said  of  oth- 
ers, in  poetic  diction  or  in  the  consecrated  language 

*  Zootomia,  1654,  p.  357. 


STRONG   AND   WEAK   PRETERITES.  151 

of  Scripture,  as  "  the  brazen  serpent ;"  otherwise  we 
say  "  a  brass  farthing,"  "  a  brass  candlestick."  It  is 
the  same  with  '  oaten,'  '  oaken,'  '  birchen,'  '  beechen,' 
'  strawen,'  and  many  more,  of  which  some  are  obso- 
lescent, some  obsolete  ;  and  the  manifest  tendency  of 
the  language  is,  as  it  has  long  been,  to  rid  itself  of 
these,  and  to  satisfy  itself  with  an  adjectival  use  of 
the  substantive  in  their  stead. 

Let  me  illustrate  by  another  example  that  which  I 
am  now  seeking  especially  to  press  on  your  notice, 
namely,  that  a  language,  as  it  travels  onward,  simpli- 
fies itself,  approaches  more  and  more  to  a  grammatical 
and  logical  uniformity,  seeks  to  do  the  same  thing  al- 
ways in  the  same  manner ;  where  it  has  two  or  three 
ways  of  conducting  a  single  operation,  lets  all  of  them 
go  but  one ;  and  in  these  ways  becomes  no  doubt  ea- 
sier to  be  mastered,  more  handy,  more  manageable ; 
but  at  the  same  time  is  in  danger  of  forfeiting  elements 
of  strength,  variety,  and  beauty,  which  it  once  pos- 
sessed. I  would  adduce,  then,  as  a  further  example 
of  this,  the  tendency  of  our  verbs  to  let  go  their  strong 
praeterites,  and  to  substitute  weak  ones  in  their  room ; 
or,  where  they  have  two  or  three  praeterites,  to  re- 
tain only  one  of  them,  and  that  invariably  the  weak 
one.  Though  many  of  us  no  doubt  are  familiar  with 
the  terms  '  strong'  and  '  weak'  praeterites,  which  in 
all  our  better  grammars  have  put  out  of  use  the  wholly 
misleading  terms  '  irregular'  and  '  regular,'  I  perhaps 
had  better  remind  you  of  what  the  exact  meaning  of 
the  terms  is.  A  strong  praeterite  is  one  formed  by 
an  internal  vowel  change  ;  for  instance,  the  verb  '  to 
driue*  forms  the  praeterite  '  droved  by  an  internal 
change  of  the  vowel  '  i '  into  '  o.'     But  why,  it  may 


152        DIMINUTIONS   OF   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

be  asked,  called  '  strong'  ?  In  respect  that  there  is 
enough  of  vigor  and  indwelling  energy  in  the  word  to 
form  its  past  tense  from  its  own  resources,  and  with 
no  calling  in  of  help  from  without.  On  the  other 
hand,  '  to  lift'  forms  its  prasterite  '  lUted,^  not  by  any 
internal  change,  but  by  the  addition  of  '  ed ;'  '  to 
grieve'  in  like  manner  has  '  grievec/.'  Here  are  weak 
tenses ;  as  strength  was  ascribed  to  the  other  verbs, 
so  weakness  to  these ;  being  only  able  to  form  their 
praeterites  by  external  aid  and  addition.  You  will 
at  once  perceive  that  these  strong  praeterites,  while 
they  testify  to  a  vital  energy  in  the  words  which  are 
able  to  put  them  forth,  do  also,  as  is  the  confession  of 
all  who  have  studied  the  matter,  contribute  much  to 
the  variety  and  charm  of  a  language.* 

The  point,  however,  to  which  I  would  solicit  your 
especial  attention  is,  that  these  are  becoming  fewer 
in  our  language  every  day ;  a  vast  number  of  them 
have  disappeared,  having  gradually  fallen  quite  out 
of  use,  while  others  are  in  the  act  of  so  falling.  Nor 
is  there  any  compensating  process  on  the  other  hand ; 
the  power  of  forming  new  strong  praeterites  is  long 
ago  extinct ;  probably  no  new  verb  which  has  come 
into  the  language  since  the  Conquest  has  asserted  this 
power,  while  multitudes  have  let  it  go. .  Let  me  men- 
tion a  few  instances  in  which  it  has  disappeared.  Thus, 
'  shape'  has  now  a  weak  prasterite,  '  shaped,'  it  had 
once  a  strong  one,  '  shope  ;'  '  to  bake'  has  now  a  weak 

'*  J.  Grimm  {Deutsche  Gramm.,  vol.  i.,  p.  1040) :  "Dass  die  starke 
form  die  iiltere,  kriiftiirerc,  innere;  die  schwache  die  spatere,^ehemm- 
tere  und  mehr  ausserliche  soy,  leuclitet  ein."  Elsewhere,  speaking 
generally  of  inflections  by  internal  vowel  change,  he  characterizes 
them  as  a  "chief  beauty"  (hauptschonheit)  of  the  Teutonic  Ian. 
guages.  ^ 


STRONG   PRETERITES   DISAPPEAR.  153 

prseterite,  '  baked,'  it  had  once  a  strong  one,  *  boke  ;' 
the  praeterite  of  '  glide'  is  now  '  glided,'  it  was  once 

*  glode'  or  '  glid  ;'  '  help'  makes  now  '  helped.'  it  made 
once  '  halp'  and  '  holp.'  '  Creep'  made  '  crope,'  still 
current  in  the  north  of  England  ;  '  weep' '  wopef' '  yell' 

*  yoir  (both  in  Chaucer)  ;  '  seethe'  *  soth'  or  '  sod' 
("  Jacob  sod  pottage,"  Gen.  xxv.  29)  :  in  each  of 
these  cases  the  strong  praeterite  has  given  way  to  the 
weak.  It  is  the  same  with  '  sheer,'  which  once  made 
'  shore  ;'  as '  leap'  made  '  lope  ;'  '  wash'  '  wishe'  (Chau- 
cer) ;  '  snow'  '  snew  ;'  '  delve'  '  dalf '  and  '  dolve  ;' 
'sweat'  *swat;'  'yield'  '  yold'  (both  in  Spenser); 
'  melt' '  molt ;' '  wax' '  wex'  and '  wox ;' '  laugh' '  leugh ;' 
with  innumerable  others.* 

We  again  recognise  in  this  which  has  just  been 
noted,  the  limits  and  restraints  which  a  language 
gradually  imposes  on  its  own  freedom  of  action.  We 
may  observe  further,  while  on  this  matter  of  strong 
praeterites,  for  it  bears  directly  on  our  subject,  that 
where  verbs  have  not  actually  renounced  these  their 
strong  praeterites,  and  contented  themselves  with 
weak  ones  in  their  room,  yet  having  once  two,  or,  it 
might  be,  three  of  these  strong,  they  now  have  only 
one.  The  others,  on  the  principle  of  dismissing  what- 
ever can  be  dismissed,  they  have  let  go.    Thus,  '  chide' 

*  As  a  marvellous  example  of  the  entire  ignorance  as  to  the  past 
historic  evolution  of  the  language,  with  which  it  has  been  often  under- 
taken to  write  about  it,  I  may  mention  that  the  author  of  Observations 
upon  the  English  Lampiage,  without  date,  but  published  about  1730, 
treats  all  these  strong  preterites  as  of  recent  introduction,  counting 

*  knew*  to  have  lately  expelled  '  knowed,'  *  rose'  to  have  acted  the 
same  part  toward  'rised,'  and  of  course  esteeming  them  as  so  many 
barbarous  violations  of  the  laws  of  the  language ;  and  concludmg 
with  the  warning  that  "great  care  must  be  taken  to  prevent  their 
increase"  ! !  —  p.  24. 

7* 


154        DIMINUTIONS   OP   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

had  once  '  chid'  and  '  chode  ;'  but  though  '  chode'  is 
in  our  bibles  (Gen.  xxxi.  86),  it  has  not  maintained 
itself  in  our  speech  ;  '  sling'  had  '  slung'  and  '  slang' 
(1  Sam.  xvii.  49)  ;  only  '  slung'  remains  ;  '  fling'  had 
once  ' Jlung'  and  '  flang ;' '  tread'  had  '  trod'  and  '  trad ;' 
'  choose'  had  '  chose'  and  '  chase  ;'  '  give'  had  '  gave' 
and  '  gove ;'  ^  lead'  had  '  led' '  lad'  and '  lode  ;'  '  write' 
had  '  wrote'  '  writ'  and  '  wrate ;'  in  each  of  these 
cases,  and  they  might  easily  be  multiplied,  only  the 
praeterite  which  I  have  named,  the  first,  remains  in 
use. 

Nor  should  you  fail  to  observe  that,  wherever  there 
is  at  the  present  time  a  conflict  going  on  between 
weak  and  strong  forms,  which  shall  remain  in  use,  as 
there  is  in  several  verbs,  in  every  instance  the  battle 
is  not  to  the  strong ;  on  the  contrary,  the  weak  is  car- 
rying the  day,  is  gradually  putting  the  other  out  of 
use.  Thus,  '  climbed'  is  getting  the  upper  hand  of 
'  clomb,'  as  the  past  tense  of  '  to  climb  ;'  '  swelled'  of 
'  swoll ;'  '  hanged'  of  *  hung.'  It  is  not  too  much  to 
anticipate  that  a  time  will  arrive,  although  it  may  be 
centuries  distant,  when  all  the  verbs  in  the  English 
language  will  form  their  praeterites  weakly ;  not  with- 
out a  considerable  loss  of  the  fullness  and  energy 
which  in  this  respect  the  language  even  now  displays, 
and  once  far  more  eminently  displayed.*  * 

Once  more :  the  entire  dropping  among  the  higher 
classes  of  '  thou,'  except  in  poetry  or  in  addresses  to 
the  Deity,  and,  as  a  necessary  consequence,  the  drop- 
ping also  of  the  second  singular  of  the  verb  with  its 

*  J.  Grimm  {Deutsche  Gramm.,  vol.  i.,  p.  839) :  "  Die  starke  flexion 
stufenweise  versinkt  und  ausstirbt,  die  schwache  aber  um  sich  greift.'' 
Cf.  i.,  994,  1040 ;  ii.,  5 ;  iv.,  509. 


EMPLOYMENT  OP   'THOU.'  155 

strongly-marked  flexion  as  '  lovest,'  '  lovedst,'  is  an- 
other example  of  a  force  once  existing  in  the  language, 
which  has  been,  or  is  being,  allowed  to  expire.  In 
the  seventeenth  century  it  was  with  '  thou'  in  English 
as  it  is  still  with  '  du'  in  German,  with  '  tu'  in  French  ; 
being,  as  it  then  was,  the  sign  of  familiarity,  whether 
that  familiarity  was  of  love,  or  of  contempt  and  scorn.* 
It  was  not  unfrequently  the  latter.  Thus,  at  Sir  Wal- 
ter Raleigh's  trial  (1603),  Coke,  when  argument  and 
evidence  failed  him,  insulted  the  defendant  by  apply- 
ing to  him  the  term  '  thou' :  "  All  that  Lord  Cobham 
did  was  at  thy  instigation,  thou  viper!  for  I  thou  thee, 
thou  traitor."  And  when  Sir  Toby  Belch,  in  Twelfth 
Nig-ht,  is  urging  Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek  to  send  a 
sufficiently-provocative  challenge  to  Viola,  he  suggests 
to  him  that  he  "  taunt  him  with  tlie  license  of  ink ; 
if  thou  thou'st  him  some  thrice,  it  shall  not  be  amiss." 
To  keep  this  in  mind  will  throw  considerable  light  on 
one  early  peculiarity  of  the  quakers,  and  give  a  cer- 
tain dignity  to  it,  as  once  maintained,  which  at  pres- 
ent it  is  very  far  from  possessing.  We  shall  see  that 
however  unnecessary  and  unwise  their  determination 
to  '  thee'  and  '  thou'  the  whole  world  was,  yet  this 
had  a  significance ;  it  was  not,  as  now  to  us  it  seems, 
and  through  the  silent  changes  which  language  has 
undergone,  as  now  it  indeed  is,  a  gratuitous  departure 
from  the  ordinary  usage  of  society.  Right  or  wrong, 
it  meant  something,  and  had  an  ethical  motive  :  being 
indeed  a  testimony  upon  their  parts,  however  mis- 
placed, that  they  would  not  have  high,  or  great,  or 

*  Thus  Wallis  (Gramm.  Ling.  Anglic,  1654) :  "  Singulari  numero 
siquis  alium  compellet,  vel  deOlsjnantis  illud  esse  solet,  vel  familiari- 
ter  blandientis." 


156        DIMINUTIONS   OF  THE   ENGLISH   LA.NrxUAGE. 

rich  men's  persons  in  admiration  ;  nor  give  the  obser- 
vance to  some  what  they  withheld  from  others.  And 
it  was  a  testimony  which  cost  them  something ;  at 
present  we  can  very  little  understand  the  amount  of 
courage  which  this  '  thou-ing'  and  '  thee-ing'  of  all 
men  must  have  demanded  on  their  parts,  nor  yet  the 
amount  of  indignation  and  offence  which  it  stirred  up 
in  them  who  were  not  aware  of,  or  would  not  allow 
for,  the  scruples  which  induced  them  to  it.*  It  is, 
however,  in  its  other  aspect  that  we  must  chiefly  regret 
the  dying  out  of  the  use  of  'thou' — that  is,  as  the 
voice  of  peculiar  intimacy  and  special  affection,  as  be- 
tween husband  and  wife,  parents  and  children,  and 
such  other  as  might  be  knit  together  by  bands  of  more 
than  common  affection. 

I  observed,  in  entering  upon  this  part  of  my  sub- 
ject, that  my  illustrations  of  it  should  be  drawn  in 
the  main  from  that  which  is  now  going  forward  in  the 
language ;  yet,  before  concluding  my  lecture,  I  will 
draw  one  illustration  from  its  remoter  periods,  and 
will  call  your  attention  to  a  force  not  now  waning  and 
failing,  but  which  has  wholly  disappeared  long  ago. 
I  can  not  well  pass  it  by;  because  we  have  here  the 
boldest  step  which  in  this  direction  of  simplification 
the  English  language  has  at  any  time  taken.  I  allude 
to  the  renouncing  of  the  distribution  of  its  nouns  into 

*  What  the  actual  position  of  the  corapellation  '  thou'  M'as  at  that 
'time,  we  may  perhaps  best  learn  from  this  passage  in  Fuller's  Church 
History,  Dedication  of  Booh  vii.  :  "  In  opposition  whereunto  [that  is, 
to  the  quaker  usage]  we  maintain  that  thou  from  superiors  to  inferiors 
is  proper,  as  a  sign  of  command ;  from  equals  to  equals  is  passable, 
as  a  note  of  familiarity;  but  from  inferiors  to  superiors,  if  proceeding 
from  ignorance,  hath  a  smack  of  clownishness ;  if  from  affectation,  a 
tone  0^  contempt." 


FEMALE,    FEMININE,    ETC.  157 

masculine,  feminine,  and  neuter,  or  even  into  maFCU- 
line  and  feminine,  as  in  the  French ;  and  with  this, 
and  as  a  necessary  consequence  of  this,  the  dropping 
of  any  flexional  modification  in  the  adjectives  con- 
nected with  them.  Natural  sex  of  course  remains, 
])(jing  inherent  in  all  language  ;  but  grammatical  gen- 
der, with  the  exception  of  '  he,'  '  she,'  and  '  it,'  and 
perhaps  one  or  two  other  fragmentary  instances,  the 
language  has  altogether  foregone.  An  example  will 
make  clear  the  distinction  between  these.  When  I 
use  the  word  '  poetess,'  it  is  not  the  word  '•  poetess' 
which  is  feminine^  but  the  person  indicated  by  the 
word  who  is  female.  So,  too,  '  daughter,'  '  queen,* 
are  in  English  v^oi  feminine  nouns,  but  nouns  designa- 
ting female  persons.  Take,  on  the  contrary,  '  filia' 
or  'regina,'  '  fille'  or  '  reine,'  there  you  haye  feminine 
nouns  as  well  as  female  persons.  I  need  hardly  say 
to  you  that  we  did  not  inherit  this  simplicity  from 
others,  but,  like  the  Danes,  in  so  far  as  they  have 
done  the  like,  have  made  it  for  ourselves.  Whether 
we  turn  to  the  Latin,  or,  which  is  for  us  more  impor- 
tant, to  the  old  Gothic,  we  find  gender ;  and  in  the 
four  daughter-languages  which  have  descended  from 
the  Latin,  in  most  of  those  which  have  descended 
from  the  ancient  Gothic  stock,  it  is  fully  established 
to  the  present  day.  The  practical,  business-like  char- 
acter of  the  English  mind  asserted  itself  in  the  rejec- 
tion of  a  distinction  which,  in  the  great  multitude  of 
words — that  is,  in  all  having  to  do  with  inanimate 
things,  and  as  such  incapable  of  sex — rested  upon  a 
fiction,  and  had  no  ground  in  the  real  nature  of  things. 
It  is  only  by  an  act  and  effort  of  the  imagination  that 
sex,  and  thus  gender,  can  be  attributed  to  a  table,  a 


158        DIMINUTIONS   OP  THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

ship,  or  a  tree  ;  and  there  are  aspects  —  this  is  one  — 
in  which  the  English  is  among  the  least  imaginative 
of  all  languages,  even  while  it  has  been  employed  in 
some  of  the  greatest  works  of  imagination  which  the 
world  has  ever  seen. 


ETC.  169 


LECTURE   IV. 

CHANGES   IN  THE   MEANING   OP  ENGLISH   WORDS. 

I  PROPOSE,  according  to  the  plan  which  I  sketched 
out  in  my  first  lecture,  to  take  for  the  subject  of  my 
present  one  the  changes  which  in  the  course  of  time 
have  found  place,  or  now  are  finding  place,  in  the 
meaning  of  many  among  our  English  words ;  so  that, 
whether  we  are  aware  of  it  or  not,  we  employ  them 
at  this  day  in  senses  very  different  from  those  in  which 
our  forefathers  employed  them  of  old.  You  will  ob- 
serve that  it  is  not  obsolete  words,  words  quite  fallen 
out  of  present  use,  which  I  propose  to  consider — 
words,  rather,  which  are  still  on  the  lips  of  men,  but 
with  meanings  more  or  less  removed  from  those  which 
once  they  possessed.  My  subject  is  far  more  practi- 
cal, you  will  feel  it  to  have  far  more  to  do  with  your 
actual  life,  than  if  I  had  taken  obsolete  words,  and 
considered  them.  These  last  have  an  interest  indeed, 
but  it  is  an  interest  of  an  antiquarian  character.  Such 
words  were  a  part  of  the  intellectual  money  with  which 
our  ancestors  carried  on  their  affairs,  but  now  they 
are  rather  medals  for  the  cabinets  and  collections  of 
the  curious  than  current  money  for  the  needs  and 
ploasures  of  all.  Their  wings  are  clipped,  so  that 
they  are  '•'^wing-ed  words"  (tVsa  cr.-s^oevra)  no  more ; 
tlic  spark  of  thought  or  feeling,  kindling  from  mind  to 


160          CHANGED   MEANING   OF   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

mind,  no  longer  runs  along  them,  as  along  the  electric 
wires  of  the  soul. 

And  then,  besides  this,  there  is  little  or  no  danger 
that  any  should  be  misled  by  them.  A  reader  lights 
for  the  first  time  on  one  of  these  obsolete  English 
words,  '  frampold,'  or  '  garboil,'  or  '  brangle.'  He  is 
at  once  conscious  of  his  ignorance ;  he  has  recourse 
to  a  glossary,  or,  if  he  guesses  from  the  context  at  the 
word's  signification,  still  his  guess  is  as  a  guess  to 
him,  and  no  more.  But  words  that  have  changed 
their  meaning  have  often  a  deceivableness  about  them  ; 
a  reader  not  once  doubts  but  that  he  knows  their  in- 
tention, has  no  misgiving  but  that  they  possess  for  him 
the  same  force  which  they  possessed  for  their  writer, 
'and  conveyed  to  his  contemporaries,  when  indeed  it 
is  otherwise  altogether. 

Let  me  illustrate  this  by  examples.  A  reader  of 
our  day  lights  upon  such  a  passage  as  the  following 
(it  is  in  the  Preface  to  Howell's  Lexicon^  1660): 
"  Though  the  root  of  the  English  language  be  Dutch, 
yet  it  may  be  said  to  have  been  inoculated  afterward 
on  a  French  stock."  He  may  know  that  the  Dutch  is 
a  sister-language  or  dialect  to  our  own  ;  but  this,  that 
it  is  the  mother  or  root  of  it,  will  certainly  perplex 
Tiim,  and  he  will  hardly  know  what  to  make  of  the 
assertion ;  perhaps  he  ascribes  it  to  an  error  in  his 
author,  who  is  thereby  unduly  lowered  in  his  esteem. 
Biit  presently  in  the  course  of  his  reading  he  meets 
with  the  following  statement,  this  time  in  Fuller's 
Holy  War,  being  a  history  of  the  Crusades :  "  The 
French,  Dutch,  Italian,  and  English,  were  the  four 
elemental  nations  whereof  this  army  [of  the  crusaders] 
was  compounded."     If  the  student  has  sufiGcient  his- 


DUTCH    AND   GERMAN.  161 

torical  knowledge  to  know  that  in  the  time  of  the 
Crusades  there  were  no  Dutch  in  our  use  of  the  word, 
tliis  statement  would  merely  startle  him  ;  and  proba- 
bly before  he  had  finished  the  chapter,  having  his  at- 
tention once  roused,  he  would  perceive  that  Fuller, 
with  the  writers  of  his  time,  used  '  Dutch'  for  German  ; 
even  as  it  was  constantly  so  used  up  to  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century ;  what  we  call  now  a  Dutchman 
being  then  a  Hollander.  But  a  young  student  might 
very  possibly  want  that  amount  of  previous  knowledge, 
which  should  cause  him  to  receive  this  announcement 
with  misgiving  and  surprise  ;  and  thus  he  might  carry 
away  altogether  a  wrong  impression,  and  rise  from  a 
perusal  of  the  book,  persuaded  that  the  Dutch,  as  we 
call  them,  played  an  important  part  in  the  Crusades, 
while  the  Germans  took  little  or  no  part  in  them 
at  all. 

And  as  it  is  here  with  an  historic  fact,  so  still  more 
often  will  it  happen  with  the  subtiler  changes  which 
words  have  undergone,  conveying  now  much  more 
blame  and  condemnation,  or  conveying  now  much 
less,  than  formerly ;  or  of  a  different  kind  ;  and  a 
reader  not  aware  of  the  changes  which  have  taken 
place,  may  be  in  continual  danger  of  misreading  his 
author,  of  misunderstanding  his  intention,  while  he 
has  no  doubt  whatever  that  he  is  perfectly  apprehend- 
ing and  taking  it  in.  Thus,  when  Shakespeare,  in 
1  Hmry  VI.,  makes  the  gallant  York  address  Joan 
of  Arc  as  a  '  miscreant,'  how  coarse  a  piece  of  invec- 
tive this  sounds  I  how  unlike  what  the  chivalrous  sol- 
dier would  have  uttered ;  or  what  one  might  have 
supposed  Shakespeare,  even  with  his  unworthy  esti- 
mate  of    the   holy    warrior-maid,   would    have    put 


162         CHANGED   MEANING   OF   ENGLISH    WORDS. 

into  his  mouth  !  But  a  '  miscreant'  in  Shakespeare's 
time  had  nothing  of  the  meaning  which  now  it  has. 
It  was  simply,  in  agreement  with  its  etymology,  a 
misbeliever,  one  who  did  not  believe  rightly  the  arti- 
cles of  the  catholic  faith.  And  I  need  not  tell  you 
that  this  was  the  constant  charge  which  the  English 
brought  against  Joan,  and  on  which  in  the  end  they 
burnt  her — namely,  that  she  was  a  dealer  in  hidden 
magical  arts,  a  witch,  and  as  such  had  fallen  from 
the  faith.  It  is  this  which  York  means  when  he  calls 
her  a  '  miscreant,'  and  not  what  we  should  intend  by 
the  name. 

In  reading  of  poetry,  above  all,  what  forces  through 
this  ignorance  are  often  lost,  what  emphasis  passes 
unobserved !  how  often  the  poet  may  be  wronged  in 
our  estimation — that  seeming  to  us  now  flat  and 
pointless,  which  at  once  would  lose  this  character  did 
we  know  how  to  read  into  some  word  the  power  and 
peculiar  force  which  it  once  had,  but  which  now  has 
departed  from  it !  For  example,  Milton  ascribes  in 
Comus  the  "  tinsel-slippered  feet"  to  Thetis,  the  god- 
dess of  the  sea.  How  comparatively  poor  an  epithet 
this  '  tinsel-slippered'  sounds  for  those  who  know  of 
*  tinsel'  only  in  its  modern  acceptation  of  mean  and 
tawdry  finery,  affecting  a  splendor  which  it  does  not 
really  possess  !  But  learn  its  earlier  use  by  learning 
its  derivation  ;  bring  it  back  to  the  French  '  etincelle,' 
and  the  Latin  '  scintillula ;'  sec  in  it,  as  Milton  and 
the  writers  of  his  time  saw,  "  the  sparkling,"  and  how 
exquisitely  beautiful  a  title  does  this  become,  applied 
to  a  goddess  of  the  sea !  how  vividly  does  it  call  up 
before  our  mind's  eye  the  quick  glitter  and  sparkle 


TINSEL- SLIPPERED,   INFLUENCE,    ETC.  163 

of  the  waves  under  the  light  of  sun  or  moon  !*  It  is 
Homer's '  silver-footed'  (ap/u^o?6^a),not  servilely  trans- 
ferred, but  reproduced  and  made  his  own  by  the  Eng- 
lish poet,  dealing  as  one  great  poet  will  do  with  an- 
other—  who  will  not  disdain  to  borrow,  but  to  what 
he  borrows  will  often  add  a  further  grace  of  his  own. 
Or,  again,  do  we  keep  in  mind,  or  are  we  even 
aware,  that  whenever  the  word  '  influence'  occurs  in 
our  English  poetry,  down  to  comparatively  a  modern 
date,  there  is  always  more  or  less  remote  allusion  to 
the  skyey,  planetary  influences,  supposed  to  be  exer- 
cised by  the  heavenly  luminaries  upon  the  lives  of 
men  ?  How  many  a  passage  starts  into  new  life  and 
beauty  and  fullness  of  allusion,  when  this  is  present 
with  us  ;  even  Milton's 

"store  of  ladies,  whose  bright  eyes 
Rain  influence" — 

as  spectators  of  the  tournament,  gain  something,  when 
we  regard  them — and  using  this  language,  he  intended 
we  should  —  as  the  luminaries  of  this  lower  sphere, 
shedding  by  their  propitious  presence,  strength  and 
valor  into  the  hearts  of  their  knights 

The  word  even  in  its  present  acceptation  may  yield, 
as  here,  a  convenient  and  even  a  correct  sense ;  we 
may  fall  into  no  positive  misapprehension  about  it ; 
and  still,  through  ignorance  of  its  past  history  and  of 
the  force  which  it  once  possessed,  we  may  miss  a  great 
part  of  its  significance.  We  are  not  beside  the  mean- 
ing of  our  author,  but  we  are  short  of  it.  Thus  in 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  King  and  no  King  (act  iii., 

*  So  in  Herrick's  Electra : — 

"  More  white  than  are  the  whitest  creams, 
Or  moonlight  tinselling  the  streams." 


164  CHANGED   MEANING    OF   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

sc.  2),  a  cowardly  braggart  of  a  soldier  describes  the 
treatment  he  experienced,  when  like  Parolles  he  was 
at  length  found  out,  and  stripped  of  bis  lion's  skin  : — 
"  They  hung  me  up  by  the  heels  and  beat  me  with 
hazel-sticks,  .  .  .  that  the  whole  kingdom  took  notice 
of  me  for  a  baffled  whipped  fellow."  The  word  to 
which  I  wish  here  to  call  your  attention  is  '  baffled.' 
Probal)ly  if  you  were  reading,  there  would  be  nothing 
here  to  cause  you  to  pause ;  you  would  attach  to  the 
word  the  meaning  which  sorts  very  well  with  the  con- 
text — "  hung  up  by  the  heels  and  beaten,  all  his 
schemes  of  being  thought  much  of  were  baffled  and 
defeated."  But  '  baffled'  implies  far  more  than  this  ; 
it  contains  allusion  to  a  custom  in  the  days  of  chivalry, 
according  to  which  a  perjured  or  recreant  knight  was 
either  in  person,  or  more  commonly  in  effigy,  hung  up 
by  the  heels,  his  scutcheon  blotted,  his  spear  broken, 
and  he  himself  or  his  effigy  made  the  mark  and  subject 
of  all  kinds  of  indignities ;  such  a  one  being  said  to 
be  '  baffled.'*  Twice  in  Spenser  recreant  knights  arc 
so  dealt  with.  I  can  only  quote  a  portion  of  the 
shorter  passage,  in  which  this  infamous  punishment  is 
described : 

**  And  after  all,  for  greater  infamy 
He  by  the  heels  him  hun<;  upon  a  tree, 
And  baffled  so,  that  all  which  pass6d  by 
The  picture  of  his  punishment  might  see."t 

Probably  when  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  wrote,  men 
were  not  so  remote  from  the  days  of  chivalry  but  that 
this  custom  was  still  fresh  in  their  minds.  How  much 
more  to  them  than  to  us,  so  long  as  we  are  ignorant 

*  See  Holinshed's   Chronicles,  vol,  iii.  pp.  827,  1218:  Ann.  1513^ 
1 .570. 
t  Fairy  Queen,  vi.  7,  27 ;  of.  v.  3,  37. 


NEPHEW,    CARRIAGES.  166 

of  the  same,  would  those  words  I  just  quoted  have 
conveyed  ? 

There  are  several  places  in  the  authorized  version 
of  scripture,  where  those  who  are  not  aware  of  the 
changes,  which  having  taken  place  during  the  last  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years  in  our  language,  can  hardly 
fail  of  being  to  a  certain  extent  misled  as  to  the  inten- 
tion of  our  translators ;  or,  if  they  are  better  ac- 
quainted with  Greek  than  with  early  English,  will  be 
tempted  to  ascribe  to  them,  but  unjustly,  an  inexact 
rendering  of  the  original.  When  for  instance  St. 
Paul  teaches  that  if  any  widow  hath  children  or 
'  nephews,'  she  is  not  to  be  chargeable  to  the  church, 
but  these  are  to  requite  their  parents,  and  to  support 
them  (1  Tim.  v.  4),  it  must  seem  strange  that  '  neph- 
ews' should  be  here  introduced ;  while  a  reference  to 
the  original  (^x^ova) makes  manifest  that  the'  difficulty 
is  not  there,  but  in  our  version.  But  from  this  also 
it  is  removed,  so  soon  as  we  know  that  '  nephews,' 
like  the  Latin  '  nepotes,'  was  continually  used  at  the 
time  when  this  version  was  made,  for  grandchildren 
and  other  lineal  descendants ;  being  so  employed  by 
Hooker,  by  Shakespeare,  by  Spenser,  and  by  the  other 
great  writers  of  the  time. 

Elsewhere  St.  Luke  says :  "  We  took  up  our  car- 
riages,  and  went  up  to  Jerusalem"  (Acts  xxi.  15). 
How  was  this  possible,  exclaims  a  modern  objector, 
when  there  is  nothing  but  a  mountain  track,  impassa- 
ble for  wheels,  between  Caesarea,  the  place  from  which 
Paul  and  his  company  started,  and  Jerusalem  ?  He 
would  not  have  made  this  difficulty,  if  he  had  known 
that  in  our  early  English  '  carriages'  did  not  mean 
things  which  carried  us,  but  things  which  we  carried  ; 


166         CHANGED   MEANING   OF   ENGLISH    WORDS. 

and  "  we  took  up  our  carriages''^  implies  no  more  than 
"  we  took  up  our  baggage,"  or  "  we  trussed  up  our 
fardels,"  as  an  earlier  translation  more  familiarly  has 
it,  and  so  "  went  up  to  Jerusalem."* 

But  a  passage  in  which  the  altered  meaning  of  a 
word  involves  sometimes  a  more  serious  misunder- 
standing is  that  well-known  statement  of  St.  James, 
"  pure  religion  and  undefiled  before  God  and  the 
Father  is  this,  to  visit  the  fatherless  and  widows  in 
their  affliction."  "  There,"  exclaims  one  who  wishes 
to  set  up  St.  James  against  St.  Paul,  that  so  he  may 
escape  the  necessity  of  obeying  either,  '^  listen  to  what 
St.  James  says ;  he  does  not  speak  of  faith  as  the  con- 
dition necessary  to  salvation ;  there  is  nothing  mys- 
tical in  what  he  requires  ;  instead  of  harping  on  faith, 
he  makes  all  religion  to  consist  in  practical  deeds  of 
kindness  from  one  to  another."  But  let  us  pause  a 
moment.  Did  '  religion,'  when  our  translation  was 
made,  mean  godliness  ?  did  it  mean  the  suvi  total  of 
our  duties  toward  God  ?  for  of  course  no  one  would 
deny  that  deeds  of  kindness  are  a  part  of  our  Christian 
duty,  an  evidence  of  the  faith  which  is  in  us.  There 
is  abundant  evidence  to  show  that  '  religion'  did  not 
mean  this ;  that,  like  the  Greek  i1^)iup<s;a,  for  which  it 
here  stands,  like  the  Latin  '  religio,'  it  meant  the  out- 
ward forms  and  embodiments  in  which  the  inward 
principle  of  piety  arrayed  itself,  the  external  service 
of  God :  and  St.  James  is  urging  upon  those  to  whom 
he  is  writing  something  of  this  kind  :  "  Instead  of  the 

*  '  Carriage'  is  used  in  the  same  sense,  I  Sam.  xvii.  22 ;  and  com- 
pare North's  Plutarch,  p.  470 :  "  Spartacus  charged  his  [Lentulus'j 
lieutenants  that  led  the  army,  gave  them  battle,  overthrew  them,  and 
took  all  their  carriage  [-*>  ix.r)(j<zvhv  an-ao-a:'.]" 


MRANTNG    OF   RELIGION.  167 

ceremonial  services  of  the  Jew  s,  wliich  consisted  in 
divers  washings  and  in  other  elements  of  this  world, 
let  our  service,  our  6^r,(fxcla,  take  a  nobler  shape,  let  it 
consist  in  deeds  of  pity  and  of  love"  —  and  it  was  this 
which  our  translators  intended,  when  they  used  '  re- 
ligion' here  and  '  religious'  in  the  verse  preceding. 
How  little  '  religion'  once  meant  godliness,  how  pre- 
dominantly it  was  used  for  the  outward  service  of  God, 
is  plain  from  many  passages  in  our  Homilies,  and 
from  other  contemporary  literature. 

Again,  there  is  a  passage  in  our  Liturgy  which  1 
hav§  no  doubt  is  commonly  misunderstood.  The  mis- 
take involves  no  serious  error ;  yet  still  in  our  own 
language,  and  in  words  which  we  have  constantly  in 
our  mouths,  and  at  most  solemn  times,  it  is  certainly 
better  to  be  right  than  wrong.  You  know  that  in  the 
Litany  we  pray  God  that  it  would  please  him  "  to 
give  and  preserve  to  our  use  the  kindly  fruits  of  the 
earth."  What  meaning  do  we  attach  to  this  epithet, 
"  the  kindly  fruits  of  the  earth  ?"  Probably  we  un- 
derstand by  it  those  fruits  in  which  the  kindness  of 
God  or  of  nature  toward  us  finds  its  expression. 
This  is  no  unworthy  explanation,  but  still  it  is  not  the 
right  one.  The  "  kindly  fruits"  are  the  "  natural 
fruits,"  those  which  the  earth  according  to  its  kind 
should  naturally  bring  forth,  which  it  is  appointed  to 
produce.  To  show  you  how  little  '  kindly'  meant 
once  benignant,  as  it  means  now,  I  will  instance  an 
employment  of  it  from  Sir  Thomas  More's  Life  of 
Richard  III.  He  tells  us  that  Richard  calculated  by 
murdering  his  two  nephews  in  the  Tower  to  make 
himself  accounted  "  a  kindly  king"  —  not  certainly  a 
*  kindly'  one  in  our  present  usage  of  the  word ;  but, 


168         CHANGED   MEANING   OP   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

having  put  them  out  of  the  way,  that  ho  should  then 
be  lineal  heir  of  the  crown,  and  should  thus  be  reck- 
oned as  king  by  kind  or  natural  descent ;  and  such 
was  of  old  the  constant  use  of  the  word. 

There  is  another  passage  in  one  of  our  occasional 
services,  which  sometimes  offends  those  who  are  un- 
acquainted with  the  early  uses  of  English  words,  and 
thus  with  the  intention  of  the  actual  framers  of  that 
service.  I  mean  the  words  in  our  marriage  service, 
"  with  my  body  I  thee  worship.''*  Clearly  in  our 
modern  sense  of  '  worship'  this  language  would  be 
unjustifiable.  But  '  worship'  or  '  worthship'  meant 
'  honor'  in  our  early  English,  and  '  to  worship'  to 
honor,  this  meaning  of  '  worship'  still  surviving  in 
the  title  of  "  your  worship,"  addressed  to  the  magis- 
trate on  the  bench.  So  little  was  it  restrained  of  old 
to  the  honor  which  man  is  bound  to  pay  to  God,  that 
it  was  employed  by  Wiclif  to  express  the  honor  which 
God  will  render  to  his  faithful  servants  and  friends. 
Thus  our  Lord's  declaration,  "  If  any  man  serve  me, 
him  will  my  Father  honor ^^^  in  Wiclif 's  translation 
reads  thus :  "  If  any  man  serve  me,  my  Father  shall 
worship  him."  I  do  not  say  that  there  is  not  sufficient 
reason  to  change  the  words,  "  with  my  body  I  thee 
worship,^^  if  only  there  were  any  means  of  changing 
anything  which  is  now  antiquated  and  out  of  date  in 
our  services  or  arrangements.  I  think  it  would  be 
very  well  if  they  were  changed,  liable  as  they  are  to 
misunderstanding  and  misconstruction  now ;  but  still 
they  did  not  mean  at  the  first,  and  therefore  do  not 
now  really  mean,  any  more  than,  "  with  my  body  I 
thQQ  honor, ^^  and  so  you  may  reply  to  any  fault-finder 
here. 


PAINFUL,   ASCERTAIN.  169 

Take  anotlier  example  of  a  very  easy  misapprehen- 
sion, although  not  now  from  Scripture  or  the  Prayer 
Book.  Fuller,  our  church  historian,  having  occasion 
to  speak  of  some  famous  divine  that  was  lately  dead, 
exclaims,  "  Oh  the  painfulness  of  his  preaching !" 
We  might  assume  at  first  hearing,  and  if  we  did  not 
know  the  former  uses  of  '  painfulness,'  that  this  was 
an  exclamation  wrung  out  at  the  recollection  of  the 
tediousness  which  he  inflicted  on  his  hearers.  Par 
from  it ;  the  words  are  a  record  not  of  the  pain  which 
he  caused  to  others,  but  of  the  pains  which  he  bestowed 
himself:  and  I  am  persuaded,  if  we  had  more  '  pain- 
ful' preachers  in  the  old  sense  of  the  word,  that  is, 
who  took  pains  themselves,  we  should  have  fewer 
*  painful'  ones  in  the  modern  sense,  who  cause  pains 
to  their  hearers.  So  too  Bishop  Grosthead  is  recorded 
as  "  the  painful  writer  of  two  hundred  books"  — not 
meaning  hereby  that  these  books  were  painful  in  the 
reading,  but  that  he  was  laborious  and  painful  in  their 
composing. 

Here  is  another  easy  misapprehension.  Swift  wrote 
a  pamphlet,  or,  as  he  called  it,  a  Letter  to  the  Lord 
Treasurer,  with  this  title,  "  A  proposal  for  correcting, 
improving,  and  ascertaining  the  English  tongue." 
Who  that  brought  a  knowledge  of  present  English, 
and  no  more,  to  this  passage,  would  doubt  that  "  as- 
certaining the  English  tongue"  meant  arriving  at  a 
certain  knowledge  of  what  it  was  ?  Swift,  however, 
means  something  quite  difierent  from  this.  "  To  as- 
certain the  English  tongue"  is  not  with  him  to  arrive 
at  a  subjective  certainty  in  our  own  minds  of  what 
that  tongue  is,  but  to  give  an  objective  certainty  to 
that  tongue  itself,  so  that  henceforward  it  shall  not 

8 


170         CHANGED   MEANING   OF   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

alter  nor  change.  For  even  Swift  himself,  with  all 
his  good  sense,  entertained  a  dream  of  this  kind,  as 
is  more  fully  declared  in  the  work  itself.* 

In  other  places,  un acquaintance  with  the  changes 
in  a  word's  usage  will  not  so  much  mislead  as  leave 
you  nearly  or  altogether  at  a  loss  in  respect  of  the 
intention  of  an  author  whom  you  may  be  reading.  It 
is  evident  that  he  has  a  meaning,  but  what  it  is  you 
are  unable  to  divine,  even  though  all  the  words  he 
employs  are  words  in  familiar  employment  to  the 
present  day.  Take  an  example.  The  poet  Waller 
is  congratulating  Charles  II.  on  his  return  from  exile, 
and  is  describing  the  way  in  which  all  men,  even  those 
formerly  most  hostile  to  him,  were  now  seeking  his 
favor,  and  he  writes : — 

"  OfFenders  now,  the  chiefest,  do  begin 
To  strive  for  grace,  and  expiate  their  sin  : 
All  winds  blow  fair  that  did  the  world  embroil, 
Your  vipers  treacle  yield,  and  scorpions  oil." 

Many  a  reader  before  now  has  felt,  as  I  can  not  doubt, 
a  moment's  perplexity  at  the  now  courtly  poet's  asser- 
tion that  "vipers  treacle  yieW — who  yet  has  been 
too  indolent,  or  who  has  not  had  the  opportunity,  to 
search  out  what  his  meaning  might  be.  There  is,  in 
fact,  allusion  here  to  a  curious  piece  of  legendary 
lore.  ^  Treacle,'  or  '  triacle,'  as  Chaucer  wrote  it,  was 
originally  a  Greek  word,  and  wrapped  up  in  itself  the 
once-popular  belief  (an  anticipation,  by-the-way,  of 
homoeopathy)  that  a  confection  of  the  viper's  flesh 
was  the  most  potent  antidote  against  the  viper's  bite.f 

^  See  Sir  W.  Scott's  edition  of  Swift's  Works,  vol.  ix.,  p.  139. 
t  QriptuKfi,  from  dripiny^  a  designation  given  to  the  viper,  see  Acts 
xxviii.  4.     *  Theriac'  is  only  the  more  rigid  form  of  the  same  word  — 


ORIGIN   OP   BLA.CKGUARD.  171 

Waller  goes  back  to  this  the  word's  old  meaning, 
familiar  enough  in  his  time,  for  Milton  speaks  of  '•  the 
sovran  treacle  of  sound  doctrine,"*  while  "  Yenice 
treacle,"  or  "  viper  wine,"  as  it  sometimes  was  called, 
was  a  common  name  for  a  supposed  antidote  against 
all  poisons ;  and  he  would  imply  that  regicides  them- 
selves began  to  be  loyal,  vipers  not  now  yielding  hurt 
any  more,  but  rather  healing  for  the  old  hurts  which 
they  themselves  had  inflicted.  To  trace  the  word 
down  to  its  present  use,  it  may  be  observed  that,  ex- 
pressing first  this  antidote,  it  then  came  to  express 
any  antidote,  then  any  medicinal  confection  or  sweet 
sirup ;  and  lastly  that  particular  sirup,  namely,  the 
sweet  sirup  of  molasses,  to  which  alone  it  is  now  re- 
stricted. 

I  will  draw  on  the  writings  of  Fuller  for  one  more 
example.  In  his  Holy  War,  having  enumerated  the 
rabble  rout  of  fugitive  debtors,  runaway  slaves,  thieves, 
adulterers,  murderers,  of  men  laden  for  one  cause  or 
another  with  heaviest  censures  of  the  church,  who 
swelled  the  ranks  and  helped  to  make  up  the  army 
of  the  crusaders,  he  exclaims :  "  A  lamentable  case, 
that  the  devil's  blackguard  should  be  God's  soldiers  !" 
What  does  he  mean,  we  may  ask,  by  "  the  devil's 
black  guard'^  ?    Nor  is  this  a  solitary  allusion  to  the 

the  scholarly,  as  distinguished  from  the  popular,  adoption  of  it.     Au- 
gustine {Con.  duas  Epp.  Pelag.,  iii.,  7) :  "  Sicut  fieri  consuevit  anti- 
dotum  etiam  de  serpentibus  contra  venena  serpentum." 
*  And  Chaucer,  more  solemnly  still : — 

"  Christ,  which  that  is  to  every  harm  triade." 

The  antidotal  character  of  treacle  comes  out  yet  more  in  these  lines 
of  Lydgate  : — 

"  There  is  no  vemtn  so  parlious  in  sharpnes, 
As  whan  it  hatii  of  treacle  a  likenes." 


172         CHANGED   MEANING   OF   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

"  black  guard."  On  the  contrary,  the  phrase  is  of 
very  frequent  occurrence  in  tlie  early  dramatists  and 
others  down  to  the  time  of  Dryden,  who  gives,  as  one 
of  his  stage-directions  in  Don  Sebastian :  "  Enter  the 
captain  of  the  rabble,  with  the  Black  guards  What 
is  this  '  black  guard'  ?  Has  it  any  connection  with 
a  word  of  our  homeliest  vernacular  ?  We  feel  that 
probably  it  has  so ;  yet  at  first  sight  the  connection 
is  not  very  apparent,  nor  indeed  the  exact  force  of 
the  phrase.  Let  me  trace  its  history.  In  old  times, 
the  palaces  of  our  kings  and  seats  of  our  nobles  were 
not  so  well  and  completely  furnished  as  at  the  present 
day :  and  thus  it  was  customary,  when  a  royal  prog- 
ress was  made,  or  when  the  great  nobility  exchanged 
one  residence  for  another,  that  at  such  a  removal  all 
kitchen-utensils,  pots  and  pans,  and  even  coals,  should 
be  also  carried  with  them  where  they  went.  Those 
who  accompanied  and  escorted  these,  the  lowest,  mean- 
est, and  dirtiest  of  the  retainers,  were  called  "  the 
black  guard  ;"*  then  any  troop  or  company  of  raga- 
muffins ;  and  lastly,  when  the  origin  of  the  word  was 
lost  sight  of,  and  it  was  forgotten  that  it  properly  im- 
plied a  company,  a  rabble  rout,  and  not  a  single  per- 
son, one  would  compliment  another,  not  as  belonging 
to,  but  as  himself  being,  the  '  blackguard.' 

The  examples  which  I  have  adduced  are,  I  am  per- 
suaded, sufficient  to  prove  that  it  is  not  a  useless  and 
unprofitable  study,  nor  yet  one  altogether  without 
entertainment,  to  which  I  invite  you ;  that,  on  the 

*  '*A  slave  that  within  these  twenty  years  rode  with  the  black 
guard  in  the  duke's  carriage,  'mongst  spits  and  dripping-pans.' 
(Webster's  While  Devil.)  Anotlicr  illustration  here  of  what  was  just 
asserted,  p.  165,  of  the  word  'carriage.* 


GENERIC    AND   SPECIAL   WORDS.  173 

contrary,  any  one  who  desires  to  read  with  accuracy 
and  thus  with  advantage  and  pleasure,  our  earlier 
classics — who  would  avoid  continual  misapprehension 
in  their  perusal,  and  would  not  often  fall  short  of,  and 
often  go  astray  from,  their  meaning — must  needs  be- 
stow some  attention  on  the  altered  significance  of 
English  words.  And  if  this  is  so,  we  could  not  more 
usefully  employ  wliat  remains  of  this  present  lecture 
than  in  seeking  to  indicate  those  changes  which  words 
most  frequently  undergo ;  and  to  trace  as  far  as  we 
can  the  causes,  mental  and  moral,  at  work  in  the 
minds  of  men  to  bring  these  changes  about,  with  the 
good  and  evil  out  of  which  they  have  sprung,  and  to 
which  they  bear  witness. 

For,  indeed,  these  changes  to  which  words  in  the 
progress  of  time  are  submitted,  are  not  changes  at 
random,  but  for  the  most  part  are  obedient  to  certain 
laws,  are  capable  of  being  distributed  into  certain 
classes,  being  the  outward  transcripts  and  witnesses 
of  mental  and  moral  processes  inwardly  going  forward 
in  those  who  bring  these  changes  about.  Many,  it  is 
true,  will  escape  any  classification  of  ours  ;  the  changes 
which  have  taken  place  in  their  meaning  being,  or  at 
least  seeming  to  us,  the  result  of  mere  caprice,  and 
not  explicable  by  any  principle  which  we  can  appeal 
to  as  habitually  at  work  in  the  mind.  Many  more, 
however,  are  reducible  to  some  law  or  other,  and  with 
these  we  will  occupy  ourselves  now. 

And,  first,  the  meaning  of  a  word  oftentimes  is 
gradually  narrowed.  It  was  once  as  a  generic  name, 
embracing  many  as  yet  unnamed  species  within  itself, 
which  all  went  by  its  common  designation.  By-and- 
by,  it  is  found  convenient  that  each  of  these  should 


174  CHANGED   MEANING   OP   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

have  its  own  more  special  sign  allotted  to  it.  It  is 
here  just  as  in  some  newly-enclosed  country,  where  a 
single  household  will  at  first  loosely  occupy  a  whole 
district ;  while,  as  cultivation  proceeds,  this  district 
is  gradually  parcelled  out  among  a  dozen  or  twenty, 
and  under  more  accurate  culture  employs  and  sustains 
them  all.  Thus,  for  example,  all  food  was  once  called 
'  meat ;'  it  is  so  in  our  Bible,  and  '  horse-meat'  for  fod- 
der is  still  no  unusual  phrase ;  yet  '  meat'  is  now  a 
name  given  only  to  flesh.  Any  little  book  or  writing 
was  a  '  libel'  once  ;  now  only  such  a  one  as  is  scurri- 
lous and  injurious.  Any  leader  was  a  '  duke'  (dux)  ; 
thus,  "duke  Hannibal"  (Sir  Thomas  Elyot),  "duke 
Brennus"  (Holland),  "  duke  Theseus"  (Shakespeare), 
"  duke  Amalek,"  with  other  '  dukes'  (Gen.  xxxvi.). 
Any  journey,  by  land  as  much  as  by  sea,  was  a  '  voyage ;' 
'  fairy'  was  not  a  name  restricted,  as  now,  to  the  Gothic 
mythology :  thus,  "  the  fairp  Egeria"  (Sir  J.  Harring- 
ton). A  'corpse'  might  be  quite  as  well  living  as 
dead.  '  Weeds'  were  whatever  covered  the  earth  or 
the  person ;  while  now,  as  respects  the  earth,  those 
only  are  '  weeds'  which  are  noxious,  or  at  least  self- 
sown  ;  as  regards  the  person,  we  speak  of  no  other 
weeds  but  the  widow's.  In  each  of  these  cases,  the 
same  contraction  of  meaning,  the  separating  off  and 
assigning  to  other  words  of  large  portions  of  this, 
has  found  place.  '  To  starve'  (the  German  '  sterben,' 
and  generally  spelt  '  sterve'  up  to  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century),  meant  once  to  die  any  man- 
ner of  death ;  thus,  Chaucer  says  Christ  "  sterved 
upon  the  cross  for  our  redemption;"  it  now  is  re- 
stricted to  the  dying  by  cold  or  by  hunger.  Words 
not  a  few  were  once  applied  to  both  sexes  alike,  which 


WORDS   USED   MORE   ACCURATELY.  175 

are  now  restricted  to  the  female.  It  is  so  even  with 
'  girl,'  wliich  was  once  a  young  person  of  either  sex  ;* 
while  other  words  in  this  list,  such  for  instance  as 
'hoyden'  (Milton,  prose),  'shrew'  (Chaucer),  'co- 
quet' (Phillips,  New  World  of  Words),  '  witch'  (Wio- 
lif),  '  termagant'  (Bale),  '  scold,'  'jade,'  '  slut'  (Gow- 
er),  must  be  regarded  in  their  present  exclusive 
appropriation  to  the  female  sex  as  evidences  of  men's 
rudeness,  and  not  of  women's  deserts. 

The  necessities  of  an  advancing  civilization  de- 
mand a  greater  precision  and  accuracy  in  the  use  of 
words  having  to  do  with  weight,  measure,  number, 
size.  Almost  all  such  words  as  '  acre,'  '  furlong,' 
'yard,'  'gallon,'  'peck,'  were  once  of  a  vague  and 
unsettled  use,  and  only  at  a  later  day,  and  in  obedi- 
ence to  the  requirements  of  commerce  and  social  life, 
exact  measures  and  designations.  Thus,  every  field 
was  once  an  '  acre ;'  and  this  remains  so  still  with 
the  German  '  acker,'  and  in  our  "  God's  acre,"  as  a 
name  for  a  churchyard :  it  was  not  till  about  the  reign 
of  Edward  I.  that  '  acre'  was  commonly  restricted  to 
a  determined  measure  and  portion  of  land.  Here 
and  there  even  now  a  glebeland  will  be  called  "  the 
acre ;"  and  this,  even  while  it  contains  not  one  but 
many  of  our  measured  acres.  A  '  furlong'  was  a  '  fur- 
rowlong,'  or  length  of  a  furrow. f     Any  pole  was  a 

*  And  no  less  so  in  French  with  'dame/  by  which  form  not  'domi- 
na'  only,  but  'dominus/  was  represented.  Thus,  in  early  French 
poetry,  "  Dame  Dicu"  for  "  Dominus  Dcus"  continually  occurs.  We 
have  here  the  key  to  the  French  exclamation,  or  oath,  as  we  now 
perceive  it  to  be,  '  Dame  !'  of  which  the  dictionaries  give  no  account. 
See  G^nin's  Variations  du  Langage  Fran^ais,  p.  347 — a  most  instruc- 
tive work. 

t  "  A  furlong,  qiiAs'i  furrowlong,  being  so  much  as  a  team  in  England 


176  CHANGED   MEANING   OF   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

'  yard,'  and  this  vaguer  use  survives  in  '  ssLili/ard,'' 
'  halyard,'  and  in  other  sea-terms.  Every  pitcher 
was  a  '  galon'  (Mark  xiv.  13,  Wiclif),  while  a  '  peck' 
was  no  more  than  a  '  poke'  or  bag.  And  the  same 
has  no  doubt  taken  place  in  all  other  languages.  I 
will  only  remind  you  how  the  Greek  '  drachm'  was  at 
first  a  handful  (^SpaxM  =  '  manipulus,'  from  (^ptxcro'w,  to 
grasp)  ;  its  later  word  for  ten  thousand  (,aupio»)  implied 
in  Homer's  time  any  great  multitude. 

Opposite  to  this  is  a  counter-process  by  which  words 
of  narrower  intention  gradually  enlarge  the  domain 
of  their  meaning,  becoming  capable  of  much  wider 
application  than  any  which  once  they  admitted.  In- 
stances in  this  kind  are  fewer  than  in  that  which  we 
have  just  been  considering.  The  main  stream  and 
course  of  human  thoughts  and  human  discourse  tends 
the  other  way,  to  discerning,  distinguishing,  dividing ; 
and  then  to  the  permanent  fixing  of  the  distinctions 
gained,  by  the  aid  of  designations  which  shall  keep 
apart  for  ever  in  word  that  which  has  been  once  sev- 
ered and  sundered  in  thought.  Nor  is  it  hard  to  per- 
ceive why  this  process  should  be  the  more  frequent. 
Men  are  first  struck  with  the  likenesses  between  those 
things  which  are  presented  to  them,  with  their  points 
of  resemblance  ;  on  the  strength  of  which  they  bracket 
them  under  a  common  term.  Further  acquaintance 
reveals  their  points  of  unlikeness,  the  real  dissimilari- 
ties which  lurk  under  superficial  resemblances,  the 
need  therefore  of  a  different  notation  for  objects  which 
are  essentially  different.  It  is  comparatively  much 
rarer  to  discover  real  likeness  under  what  at  first  afh 

ploughetli  going  forward,  before  they  return  back  again."  Fuller, 
Pisgah  Sight  of  Palestine,  p.  42.) 


WORDS  USED  LESS   ACCURATELY.  177 

peared  as  unlikeness  ;  and  usually  when  a  word  moves 
forward,  and  from  a  specialty  indicates  now  a  gener- 
ality, it  is  not  in  obedience  to  any  such  discovery  of 
the  true  inner  likeness  of  things — the  steps  of  success- 
ful generalizations  being  marked  and  secured  in  other 
ways.  But  this  widening  of  a  word's  meaning  is  too 
often  a  result  of  those  elements  of  disorganization  and 
decay  which  are  at  work  in  a  language.  Men  forget 
a  word's  history  and  etymology ;  its  distinctive  fea- 
tures are  obliterated  for  them,  with  all  which  attached 
it  to  some  thought  or  fact  which  by  right  was  its  own. 
Appropriated  and  restricted  once  to  some  striking 
specialty  which  it  vigorously  set  out,  it  can  now  be 
used  in  a  wider,  vaguer,  more  unsettled  way.  It  can 
be  employed  twenty  times  for  once  when  it  would 
have  been  possible  formerly  to  employ  it.  Yet  this 
is  not  gain,  but  pure  loss.  It  has  lost  its  place  in  the 
army  of  words,  and  become  one  of  the  loose  and  dis- 
orderly mob. 

Let  me  instance  the  word  'preposterous.'  It  is 
now  no  longer  of  any  practical  service  at  all  in  the 
language,  being  merely  an  ungraceful  and  slipshod 
synonym  for  absurd.  But  restore  and  confine  it  to 
its  old  use ;  let  it  designate  that  one  peculiar  branch 
of  absurdity  which  it  designated  once — namely,  the 
reversing  of  the  true  order  of  things,  the  putting  of 
the  last  first,  aild,  by  consequence,  of  the  first  last — 
and  of  what  excellent  service  the  word  would  be  ca- 
pable !  Thus,  it  is  '  preposterous,'  in  the  most  accu- 
rate use  of  the  word,  to  put  the  cart  before  the  horse, 
to  expect  wages  before  the  work  is  done,  to  hang  a 
man  first  and  try  him  afterward ;  and  in  this  strict 

8* 


178  CHANGED   MEANIiNG   OF    ENGLISH    WORDS. 

and  accurate  sense  the  word  was  always  used  by  our 
elder  writers. 

In  like  manner,  "  to  prevaricate"  was  never  em- 
ployed by  good  writers  of  the  seventeenth  century 
without  nearer  or  more  remote  allusion  to  the  uses  of 
the  word  in  the  Roman  law-courts,  where  a  '  prsevari- 
cator'  (properly  a  straddler  with  distorted  legs)  did 
not  mean  generally  and  loosely,  as  now  with  us,  one 
who  shuffles,  quibbles,  and  evades  ;  but  one  who  plays 
false  in  a  particular  manner ;  who,  undertaking,  or 
being  by  his  office  bound,  to  prosecute  a  charge,  is  in 
secret  collusion  with  the  opposite  party  ;  and,  betray- 
ing the  cause  which  he  affects  to  support,  so  manages  the 
accusation  as  to  obtain,  not  the  condemnation,  but  the 
acquittal,  of  the  accused ;  a  "  feint-pleader,"  as,  I  think, 
in  our  old  law-language,  he  would  have  been  termed. 
How  much  force  would  the  keeping  of  this  in  mind 
add  to  many  passages  in  our  elder  divines ! 

Or  take  '  equivocal,'  '  equivocate,'  '  equivocation.' 
These  words,  which  belonged  at  first  to  logic,  have 
slipped  down  into  common  use,  and  in  so  doing  have 
lost  all  the  accuracy  of  their  first  employment.  '  Equiv- 
ocation' is  now  almost  any  such  dealing  in  ambiguous 
words  with  the  intention  of  deceiving,  as  falls  short 
of  an  actual  lie ;  but  according  to  its  etymology,  and 
in  its  primary  use,  '  equivocation,'  this  fruitful  mother 
of  so  much  error,  is  the  calling  by  the  same  name,  of 
things  essentially  diverse,  hiding  intentionally  or  oth- 
erwise a  real  difference  under  a  verbal  resemblance.* 
N'or  let  it  be  urged,  in  defence  of  its  present  looser 

*  Thus  Barrow :  "  Wliich  [courage  and  constancy]  he  that  wanteth 
is  no  other  than  equivocally  a  gentleman,  as  an  image  or  a  carcass  in 
a  man." 


EQUIVOCATE,   IDEA,   ETC.  179 

use,  that  only  so  could  it  have  served  the  needs  of 
our  ordinary  conversation  ;  on  the  contrary,  had  it 
retained  its  first  use,  how  serviceable  an  implement 
of  thought  would  it  have  been  in  detecting  our  own 
fixllacies,  or  those  of  others!  —  all  which  it  can  now 
be  no  longer.  • 

What  now  is  '  idea'  for  us  ?  How  infinite  the  fall 
of  this  word  since  the  time  when  Milton  sang  of  the 
Creator  contemplating  his  newly-created  world — 

"  how  it  showed, 

Answering  his  great  idea"  — 

to  its  present  use,  when  this  person  "  has  an  idea  that 
the  train  has  started,"  and  the  other  "  had  no  idea 
that  the  dinner  would  be  so  bad" !  But  this  word 
'  idea'  is  perhaps  the  worst  case  in  the  English  lan- 
guage. Matters  have  not  mended  here  since  the 
times  of  Dr.  Johnson,  of  whom  Boswell  tells  us :  "  He 
was  particularly  indignant  against  the  almost  universal 
use  of  the  word  idea  in  the  sense  of  notion  or  opinion, 
when  it  is  clear  that  idea  can  only  signify  something 
of  which  an  image  can  be  formed  in  the  mind."  There 
is,  indeed,  no  other  word  in  the  whole  compass  of 
English,  which  perhaps  is  so  seldom  used  with  any 
tolerable  correctness ;  in  none  is  the  distance  so  im- 
mense between  the  frequent  sublimity  of  the  word  in 
its  proper  use,  and  the  triviality  of  it  in  its  slovenly 
and  its  popular. 

This  tendency  in  words  to  lose  the  sharp,  rigidly- 
defined  outline  of  meaning  which  they  once  possessed 
—  to  become  of  wide,  vague,  loose  application  instead 
of  fixed,  definite,  and  precise  —  to  mean  almost  any- 
thing, and  so  really  to  mean  nothing — is,  as  I  have 
already  said,  one  of  those  tendencies,  and  among  the 


180  CHANGED   MEANING   OF   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

most  fatally  effectual,  which  are  at  work  for  the 
final  ruin  of  a  language,  and,  I  do  not  fear  to  add,  ^ 
for  the  demoralization  of  those  that  speak  it.  It  is 
one  against  which  we  shall  all  do  well  to  watch ;  for 
there  is  none  of  us  who  can  not  do  something  in  keep- 
ing words  close  to  their  own  proper  meaning,  and  in 
resisting  their  encroachment  on  the  domain  of  others. 
The  causes  which  bring  this  mischief  about  are  not 
hard  to  trace.  We  all  know  that  when  a  piece  of 
our  silver  money  has  long  acted  as  "  pale  and  common 
drudge  'tween  man  and  man,"  all  which  it  had  at  first 
of  sharper  outline  and  livelier  impress  is  obliterated 
from  it  in  the  end.  So  it  is  with  words,  above  all 
with  words  of  science  and  theology.  These,  getting 
into  general  use,  and  passing  often  from  mouth  Tt) 
mouth,  lose  the  "  image  and  superscription"  which 
they  had  before  they  descended  from  the  school  to  the 
market-place,  from  the  pulpit  to  the  street.  Being 
now  caught  up  by  those  who  understand  imperfectly 
and  thus  incorrectly  their  true  value,  who  will  not 
take  the  trouble,  or  who  are  incapable  of  grasping 
that,  they  are  obliged  to  accommodate  themselves  to 
the  lower  sphere  in  which  they  circulate,  by  laying 
aside  much  of  the  precision,  and  accuracy,  and  depth, 
which  once  they  had.  They  become  weaker,  shal- 
lower, more  indefinite ;  till  in  the  end,  as  exponents 
of  thought  and  feeling,  they  cease  to  be  of  any  service 
at  all. 

Sometimes  a  word  does  not  merely  narrow  or  extend 
its  meaning,  but  altogether  changes  it ;  and  this  it 
does  in  more  ways  than  one.  Thus  a  secondary  fig- 
urative sense  will  occasionally  quite  put  out  of  use  and 


'BOMBAST'   MEANS   COTTON   WOOL.  181 

extinguish  the  literal,  until  in  the  entire  predominance 
of  that  it  is  altogether  forgotten  that  it  ever  possessed 
any  other.  I  may  instance  '  bombast'  as  a  word  about 
which,  in  the  great  body  of  those  who  use  it,  this  for- 
getfulness   is   complete.      The   present   meaning   of 

*  bombast'  is  familiar  to  us  all,  namely  inflated  words, 
"  full  of  sound  and  fury,"  but  "  signifying  nothing." 
This,  which  is  now  its  sole  meaning,  wa;S  once  only 
the  secondary  and  superinduced ;  '  bombast'  being 
properly  the  cotton  plant,  and  then  the  cotton  wadding 
with  which  garments  were  stuffed  out  and  lined.  You 
remember  perhaps  how  Prince  Hal  addresses  Falstaff, 
"How  now,  my  sweet  creature  of  bombast f^  using 
the  word  in  its  literal  sense ;  and  another  early  poet 
has  this  line  : — 

"  Thy  body 's  bolstered  out  with  bombast  and  with  bags." 

'  Bombast'  was  then  transferred  in  a  vigorous  image  to 
the  big  words  without  strength  or  solidity  wherewith 
the  discourses  of  some  were  stuffed  out,  and  has  now 
quite  foregone  any  other  meaning.  So  too  *  to  garble' 
was  once  "  to  cleanse  from  dross  and  dirt,  as  grocers 
do  their  spices,  to  pick  or  cull  out."*  It  is  never  used 
now  in  this  its  primary  sense,  and  has,  indeed,  under- 
gone this  further  change,  that  while  once  '  to  garble' 
was  to  sift  for  the  purpose  of  selecting  the  best,  it  is 
now  to  sift  with  a  view  of  picking  out  the  worst.f 
'  Polite'  is  another  word  in  which  the  figurative  sense 
has  quite  extinguished  the  literal.     We  still  speak  of 

*  polished'  surfaces ;  but  not  any  more,  with  Cudworth, 

*  Phillips,  New  World  of  Words,  1706. 

t  **  But  his  [Gideon's]  army  must  be  garbled,  as  too  great  for  God 
to  give  victory  thereby;  all  the  fearful  return  home  by  proclamation.*' 
(Fuller,  Pisgah  Sight  of  Palest  hie,  b.  ii.,  c.  8.) 


182         CHANGED   MEANING    OF   ENGLISH    \yORDS. 

of  ''polite  bodies,  as  looking  glasses."  Neither  do 
we  now  'exonerate'  a  ship  (Burton);  nor  -stigmatize,' 
at  least  otherwise  than  figuratively,  a  '  malefactor' 
(the  same);  nor  '  corroborate'  our  health  (Sir  Thomas 
Elyot). 

Again^  a  word  will  travel  on  by  slow  and  regularly 
progressive  courses  of  change,  itself  a  faithful  index 
of  changes  going  on  in  society  and  in  the  minds  of 
men,  till  at  length  everything  is  changed  about  it. 
The  process  of  this  it  is  often  very  curious  to  observe ; 
capable  as  not  seldom  it  is  of  being  watched  step  by 
step  in  its  advances  to  the  final  consummation.  There 
may  be  said  to  be  three  leading  phases  which  the 
word  successively  presents,  three  steps  in  its  history. 
At  first  the  word  grows  naturally  out  of  its  own  root, 
is  filled  with  its  own  natural  meaning.  Presently  the 
word  allows  another  meaning,  one  superinduced  on 
the  former,  and  foreign  to  its  etymology,  to  share  with 
the  other  in  the  possession  of  it,  on  the  ground  that 
where  the  former  exists,  the  latter  commonly  co-exists 
with  it.  At  the  third  step,  the  newly-introduced 
meaning,  not  satisfied  with  its  moiety,  with  dividing 
the  possession  of  the  word,  has  thrust  out  the  original 
and  rightful  possessor  altogether,  and  remains  in  sole 
and  exclusive  possession.  The  three  successive  stages 
may  be  represented  by  a,  ab,  b ;  in  which  series  b^ 
which  was  wanting  altogether  at  the  first  stage,  and 
was  only  admitted  as  secondary  at  the  second,  does 
at  the  third  become  primary  and  indeed  alone. 

We  are  not  to  suppose  that  in  actual  fact  the  tran- 
sitions from  one  signification  to  another  are  so  strongly 
and  distinctly  marked,  as  I  have  found  it  convenient 
to  mark  them  here.     Indeed,  it  is  hard  to  imagine 


GRADUAL   CHANGE   IN   MEANING.  183 

anything  more  gradual,  more  subtile  and  impercepti- 
ble, than  the  process  of  change.  The  manner  in  which 
the  new  meaning  first  insinuates  itself  into  the  old, 
and  then  drives  out  the  old,  can  only  be  compared  to 
the  process  of  petrifaction,  as  rightly  understood  — 
the  water  not  gradually  turning  what  is  put  into  it  to 
stone,  as  we  generally  take  the  operation  to  be ;  but 
successively  displacing  each  several  particle  of  that 
which  is  brought  within  its  power,  and  depositing  a 
stony  particle  in  its  stead,  till,  in  the  end,  while  all 
appears  to  continue  the  same,  all  has  in  fact  been 
thoroughly  changed.  It  is  precisely  thus,  by  such 
slow,  gradual,  and  subtile  advances  that  the  new  mean- 
ing filters  through  and  pervades  the  word,  little  by 
little  displacing  entirely  that  which  it  before  possessed. 
No  word  would  illustrate  this  process  better  than 
that  old  example,  familiar  probably  to  us  all,  of  '  vil- 
lain.' The  '  villain'  is,  first,  the  serf  or  peasant,  ^  vil- 
lanus,'  because  attached  to  the  '  villa'  or  farm.  He 
is,  secondly,  the  peasant  who,  it  is  taken  for  granted, 
will  be  churlish,  selfish,  dishonest,  and  generally  of 
evil  moral  conditions,  these  having  come  to  be  assumed 
as  always  belonging  to  him,  and  to  be  permanently 
associated  with  his  name,  by  those  higher  classes  of 
society  who  in  the  main  commanded  the  springs  of  lan- 
guage. At  the  third  step,  nothing  of  the  meaning 
which  the  etymology  suggests,  nothing  of  '  villa,'  sur- 
vives any  longer;  the  peasant  is  wholly  dismissed, 
and  the  evil  moral  conditions  of  liim  who  is  called  by 
this  name  alone  remain ;  so  that  the  name  would  now 
in  this  its  final  stage  be  applied  as  freely  to  peer,  if 
lie  deserved  it,  as  to  peasant.  '  Boor'  has  had  exactly 
the  same  history;  being  first  the  cultivator  of  the  soil; 


184         CHANGED   MEANING   OF   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

then  secondly,  the  cultivator  of  the  soil  who,  it  is  as- 
sumed, Avill  be  coarse,  rude,  and  unmannerly ;  and  then, 
thirdly,  any  one  who  is  coarse,  rude,  and  unmannerly. 
So  too  '  pagan ;'  which  is  first  villager,  tlien  heathen 
villager,  and  lastly  heathen.  .You  may  trace  the  same 
progress  in  '  churl,'  'clown,'  '  antic,'  and  in  numerous 
other  words.  The  intrusive  meaning  might  be  likened 
in  all  these  cases  to  the  egg  which  the  cuckoo  lays  in 
the  sparrow's  nest ;  the  young  cuckoo  first  sharing  the 
nest  with  its  rightful  occupants,  but  not  resting  till  it 
has  dislodged  and  ousted  them  altogether. 

Let  me  instance  one  word  more  by  way  of  illustra- 
ting this  part  of  my  subject.  It  shall  be  the  word 
'  gossip,'  on  which  however  there  will  be  a  word  or 
two  first  to  say.  I  called  your  attention  in  my  last' 
lecture  to  the  true  character  of  several  words  and 
forms  in  use  among  our  country  people,  and  claimed 
for  them  to  be  in  many  instances  genuine  English, 
although  English  now  more  or  less  antiquated  and 
overlived.  Not  otherwise  is  it  with  this  word  '  gossip.' 
I  have  myself  heard  this  title  given  by  our  Hampshire 
peasantry  to  the  sponsors  in  baptism,  the  godfathers 
and  godmothers.  1  do  not  say  that  it  is  a  usual  word  ; 
but  it  is  occasionally  employed,  and  well  understood. 
This  is  a  perfectly  correct  employment  of  '  gossip,'  in 
fact  its  proper  and  original  one,  and  involves  more- 
over a  very  curious  record  of  past  beliefs.  '  Gossip,' 
or  '  gossib,'  as  Chaucer  spelt  it,  is  a  compound  word, 
made  up  of  the  name  of  '  God,'  and  of  an  old  Anglo- 
Saxon  word,  '  sib,'  still  alive  in  Scotland,  as  all  read- 
ers of  Walter  Scott  will  remember,  and  in  some  parts 
of  England,  and  which  means  akin  ;  they  were  said  to 
be  '  sib,'  who  were  related  to  one  another.     But  why, 


GOSSIPS  SPONSORS.  ''  186 

you  may  ask,  was  the  name  given  to  sponsors  ?  Out 
of  this  reason  ;  —  in  tlie  middle  ages  it  was  the  pre- 
vailing belief  (and  the  Romish  church  still  affirms  it), 
that  those  who  stood  as  sponsors  to  the  same  child, 
beside  contracting  spiritual  obligations  on  behalf  of 
that  child,  also  contracted  spiritual  affinity  one  with 
another;  they  became  sib,  or  akin  in  God;  and  thus 
'  gossips  ;*  hence  '  gossipred,'  an  old  word,  exactly 
analogous  to  '  kindred.'  Out  of  this  faith  the  Roman 
catholic  church  will  not  allow  (unless  indeed  by  dis- 
pensations procured  for  money),  those  who  have  stood 
as  sponsors  to  the  same  child,  afterward  to  contract 
marriage  with  one  another,  affirming  them  too  nearly 
related  for  this  to  be  lawful. 

Take  '  gossip,'  however,  in  its  ordinary  present  use, 
as  one  addicted  to  idle  tittle-tattle,  and  it  seems  to 
bear  no  relation  whatever  to  its  etymology  and  first 
meaning.  The  same  three  steps,  however,  which  we 
have  traced  before  will  bring  us  to  its  present  use. 
'  Gossips'  are,  first,  the  sponsors,  brought  by  the  act 
of  a  common  sponsorship  into  affinity  and  near  famil- 
iarity with  one  another ;  secondly,  these  sponsors, 
who  being  thus  brought  together,  allow  themselves 
one  with  the  other  in  familiar,  and  then  in  trivial  and 
idle  talk ;  thirdly,  any  who  allow  themselves  in  this 
trivial  and  idle  talk — called  in  French  '  coramerage,* 
from  the  fact  that  '  commere'  has  run  through  exactly 
the  same  stages  as  its  English  equivalent. 

It  is  plain  that  words  which  designate  not  things 
and  persons  only,  but  these  as  they  are  contemplated 
more  or  less  in  an  ethical  light,  words  which  tinge 
with  a  moral  sentiment  what  they  designate,  are  pe- 
culiarly exposed  to  change ;  are  constantly  liable  to 


186         CHANGED   MEANING   OF   ENGLISH    WORDS. 

take  a  new  coloring,  or  to  lose  an  old.  The  gauge 
and  measure  of  praise  or  blame,  honor  or  dishonor, 
admiration  or  abhorrence,  which  they  convey,  is  so 
purely  a  mental  and  subjective  one,  that  it  is  most 
difficult  to  take  accurate  note  of  its  rise  or  of  its  fall, 
while  yet  there  are  causes  continually  at  work  leading 
it  to  the  one  or  the  other.  There  are  words  not  a 
few,  but  ethical  words  above  all,  which  have  so  im- 
perceptibly drifted  away  from  their  former  moorings, 
that  although  their  position  is  now  very  different  from 
that  which  they  once  occupied,  scarcely  one  in  a  hun- 
dred of  casual  readers,  of  those  whose  attention  has 
not  been  specially  called  to  the  subject,  will  have  ob- 
served that  they  have  moved  at  all.  Here  too  we 
observe  some  words  conveying  less  of  praise  or  blame 
than  once,  and  some  more ;  while  some  have  wholly 
shifted  from  the  one  to  the  other.  Some  words  were 
at  one  time  words  of  slight,  almost  of  offence,  which 
have  altogether  ceased  to  be  so  now.  Still  these  are 
rare  by  comparison  with  those  which  once  were  harm- 
less, but  now  are  harmless  no  more ;  which  once  it 
may  be  were  terms  of  honor,  but  which  now  imply  a 
slight  or  even  a  scorn.  It  is  only  too  easy  to  perceive 
why  these  should  exceed  those  in  number. 

Let  us  take  an  example  or  two.  If  any  were  to 
speak  now  of  royal  children  as  ''  royal  imps,^^  it  would 
sound,  and  with  our  present  use  of  the  word  would 
be,  impertinent  and  unbecoming  enough ;  and  yet 
'  imp'  was  once  a  name  of  dignity  and  honor,  and  not 
of  slight  or  of  undue  familiarity.  Thus  Spenser  ad- 
dresses the  Muses  in  this  language  — 

"  Ye  sacred  iJitps  that  on  Parnasso  dwell ;" 


WORDS  GROW   CONTEMPTUOUS.  187 

and  '  imp'  was  especially  used  of  the  scions  of  royal 
or  illustrious  houses.  More  than  one  epitaph,  still 
existing,  of  our  ancient  nobility  might  be  quotod,  be- 
ginning in  such  language  as  this :  *'  Here  lies  that 
noble  I/??/?."  Or  what  should  we  say  of  a  poet  who 
commenced  a  solemn  poem  in  this  fashion  — 

"  Oh  Israel,  oh  household  of  the  Lord, 
Oh  Abraham's  brats,  oh  brood  of  blessed  seed"  ? 

We  could  only  consider  that  he  meant,  by  using  low 
words  on  lofty  occasions,  to  turn  sacred  things  into 
ridicule.  Yet  this  was  very  far  from  the  intention 
of  Gascoigne,  the  poet  whose  lines  I  have  just  quoted. 
"  Abraham's  brats''^  was  used  by  him  in  perfect  good 
faith,  and  without  the  slightest  feeling  that  anything 
ludicrous  or  contemptuous  adhered  to  the  word  '  brat,' 
as  indeed  in  his  time  there  did  not,  any  more  than 
adheres  to  '  brood,'  which  is  another  form  of  the  same 
word,  now. 

Call  a  person  '  pragmatical,'  and  you  now  imply 
not  merely  that  he  is  busy,  but  over-husj,  officious, 
self-important  and  pompous  to  boot.  But  it  once 
meant  nothing  of  the  kind ;  and  '  pragmatical'  (like 
"TTpa;, /xaTuoc:)  was  One  engaged  in  affairs,  being  an  hon- 
orable title,  given  to  a  man  simply  and  industriously 
engaged  in  the  business  which  properly  concerned 
him.*  So,  too,  to  say  that  a  person  '  meddles,'  or  is 
a  '  meddler,'  implies  now  that  he  interferes  unduly  in 
other  men's  matters  ;  meddling,  or  mixing  himself  up, 
with  them.     This  was  not  insinuated  in  the  earlier 

*  "  We  can  not  always  be  contemplative,  or  pragmatical,  abroad : 
but  have  need  of  some  delightful  intennissions,  wherein  the  enlarged 
soul  may  leave  off  awhile  her  severe  schooling."  —  (Milton,  Tetra- 
chordon. ) 


188          CHANGED   MEANING   OP   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

uses  of  the  word.  On  the  contrary,  three  of  our  ear- 
lier translations  of  the  Bible  have,  '^Meddle  with 
your  own  business  (1  Thess.  iv.  11)  ;  and  Barrow  in 
one  of  his  sermons  draws  at  some  length  the  distinc- 
tion between  '  meddling'  and  "  being  meddlesome^'^ 
and  only  condemns  the  latter. 

Or  take,  again,  the  words  '  to  prose'  or  a  '  proser.' 
It  can  not,  indeed,  be  affirmed  that  they  convey  any 
moral  condemnation,  yet  they  certainly  convey  no. 
compliment  now,  and  are  almost  among  the  last  which 
any  one  would  be  willing  should  with  justice  be  ap- 
plied either  to  his  talking  or  his  writing.  For  '  to 
prose,'  as  we  all  now  know  too  well,  is  to  talk  or 
write  heavily  and  tediously,  without  spirit  and  with- 
out animation ;  but '  to  prose'  was  once  very  different 
from  this :  it  was  simply  the  antithesis  of  to  versify, 
and  a  •  proser'  the  antithesis  of  a  versifier  or  a  poet. 
It  will  follow  that  the  most  rapid  and  liveliest  writer 
who  ever  wrote,  if  he  did  not  write  in  verse,  would 
have  '  prosed'  and  been  a  '  proser,'  in  the  language 
of  our  ancestors.  Thus,  Drayton  writes  of  his  con- 
temporary Nashe : — 

"  And  surely  Nashe,  though  he  a  proser  were, 
A  branch  of  laurel  yet  deserves  to  bear"  — 

that  is,  the  ornament,  not  of  a  '  proser,'  but  of  a  poet. 
The  tacit  assumption  that  vigor,  animation,  rapid 
movement,  with  all  the  precipitation  of  the  spirit,  be- 
long to  verse  rather  than  to  prose,  and  are  the  exclu- 
sive possession  of  it,  is  that  which  must  explain  the 
changed  uses  of  the  word. 

Still  it  is  according  to  a  word's  present  signification 
that  we  must  apply  it  now.  It  would  be  no  excuse, 
having  applied  an  insulting  epithet  to  any,  if  we  should 


SYCOPHANT,   ETC.  189 

afterward  plead  that,  tried  by  its  etymology  and  pri- 
mary usage,  it  had  nothing  offensive  or  insulting  about 
it ;  although  indeed  Swift  assures  us  that  in  his  time 
such  a  plea  was  made  and  was  allowed.  "  I  remem- 
ber," he  says,  "  at  a  trial  in  Kent,  where  Sir  George 
Rooke  was  indicted  for  calling  a  gentleman  '  knave' 
and  '  villain,'  the  lawyer  for  the  defendant  brought 
off  his  client  by  alleging  that  the  words  were  not  inju- 
rious ;  for  '  knave,'  in  the  old  and  true  signification, 
imported  only  a  servant ;  and  '  vi-llain'  in  Latin  is  vil- 
licus,  which  is  no  more  than  a  man  employed  in  coun- 
try labor,  or  rather  a  baily."  The  lawyer  may  have 
deserved  his  success  for  his  ingenuity  and  his  bold- 
ness ;  though,  if  Swift  reports  him  aright,  not  certainly 
on  the  ground  of  the  strict  accuracy  of  either  his 
Anglo-Saxon  or  his  Latin. 

The  moral  sense  and  conviction  of  men  is  often  at 
work  upon  their  words,  giving  them  new  turns  in  obe- 
dience to  these  convictions,  of  which  their  changed 
use  will  then  remain  a  permanent  record.  Let  me 
illustrate  tliis  by  the  history  of  our  word  '  sycophant.' 
You  probably  are  acquainted  with  the  story  which  the 
Greek  scholiasts  invented  by  way  of  explaining  a  word 
of  which  they  knew  nothing,  namely,  that  the  '  syco- 
phant' was  a  "  manifester  of  figs,"  one  who  detected 
others  in  the  act  of  exporting  figs  from  Attica — an 
act  forbidden,  they  asserted,  by  the  Athenian  law — 
and  accused  them  to  the  people.  Be  this  explanation 
worth  what  it  may,  the  word  obtained  in  Greek  a 
more  general  sense  ;  any  accuser,  and  then  any  false 
accuser,  was  a  '  sycophant.'  And  when  the  word  was 
adopted  into  the  English  language,  it  was  in  this 
meaning ;  thus,  an  old  English  poet  speaks  of  "  the 


190  CHANGED   MEANING   OF   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

railing  route  of  sycophants f^  and  Holland:  "The 
poor  man,  that  hath  naught  to  lose,  is  not  afraid  of 
the  sycophant.''^  But  it  has  not  kept  this  meaning : 
a  ^  sycophant'  is  now  a  fawning  flatterer ;  not  one  who 
speaks  ill  of  you  behind  your  back ;  rather  one  who 
speaks  good  of  you  before  your  face,  but  good  which 
he  does  not  in  his  heart  believe.  Yet  how  true  a 
moral  instinct  has  presided  over  the  changed  signifi- 
cation of  the  word !  The  calumniator  and  the  flat- 
terer, although  they  seem  so  opposed  to  one  another, 
how  closely  united  they  really  are !  They  grow  out 
of  the  same  root.  The  same  baseness  of  spirit  which 
shall  lead  one  to  speak  evil  of  you  behind  your  back, 
will  lead  him  to  fawn  on  you  and  flatter  you  before 
your  face — out  of  a  sense  of  which  the  Italians  have 
a  proverb :  "  Who  flatters  me  before,  spatters  me 
behind." 

But  it  is  not  the  moral  sense  only  of  men  which  is 
thus  at  work,  modifying  their  words  ;  but  the  immoral 
as  well.  If  the  good  which  men  have  and  feel,  pene- 
trates into  their  speech  and  leaves  its  deposite  there, 
so  does  also  the  evil.  Thus,  we  may  trace  a  constant 
tendency  —  in  too  many  cases  it  has  been  a  successful 
one  —  to  empty  words  employed  in  the  condemnation 
of  evil,  of  the  depth  and  earnestness  of  the  moral  rep- 
robation which  they  once  conveyed.  Men's  too  easy 
toleration  of  sin,  the  feebleness  of  their  moral  indig- 
nation against  it,  bring  about  that  the  blame  which 
words  expressed  once,  has  in  some  of  them  become 
much  weaker  now  than  once,  has  from  others  vanished 
altogether.  "  To  do  a  shrewd  turn,"  was  once  to  do 
a  wicked  turn  ;  and  Chaucer,  using  '  shrewdness'  by 
which  to  translate  the  Latin  '  improbitas,'  shows  that 


SHREWD,   ANTECEDENTS,    ETC.  191 

it  meant  wickedness  for  him ;  nay,  two  murderers  he 
calls  two  '  shrews'  —  for  there  were,  as  already  no- 
ticed, male  shrews  once  as  well  as  female.  But  "  a 
shretvd  turn"  now,  while  it  implies  a  certain  amount 
of  sharp  dealing,  yet  implies  nothing  more  ;  and 
*  shrewdness'  is  applied  to  men  rather  in  their  praise 
than  in  their  dispraise.  And  not  'shrewd'  and 
'shrewdness'  only,  but  a  great  many  other  words — 
I  will  only  instance  '  prank,'  '  flirt,' '  luxury,'  '  luxuri- 
ous, '  peevish,'  '  wayward,'  '  loiterer,' '  uncivil'  —  con- 
veyed once  a  much  more  earnest  moral  disapproval 
than  now  they  do. 

But  I  must  bring  this  lecture  to  a  close.  I  have 
but  opened  to  you  paths,  which  you,  if  you  are  so 
minded,  can  follow  up  for  yourselves.  We  have 
learned  lately  to  speak  of  men's  '  antecedents ;'  the 
phrase  is  newly  come  up ;  and  it  is  common  to  say 
that  if  we  would  know  what  a  man  really  now  is,  we 
must  know  his  '  antecedents,'  that  is,  what  he  has  been 
in  time  past.  This  is  quite  as  true  about  words.  If 
we  would  know  what  they  now  are,  we  must  know 
what  they  have  been  ;  we  must  know,  if  possible,  the 
date  and  place  of  their  birth,  the  successive  stages  of 
their  subsequent  history,  the  company  which  they 
have  kept,  all  the  road  whicli  they  have  travelled, 
and  what  has  brought  them  to  tlio  point  at  which 
now  we  find  them ;  we  must  know,  in  short,  their  an- 
tecedents. 

And  let  me  say,  without  attempting  to  bring  back 
school  into  these  lectures  which  are  out  of  school, 
that,  seeking  to  do  this,  we  might  add  an  interest  to 
our  researches  in  the  lexicon  and  the  dictionary  which 
otherwise  they  could  never  have;  that  taking  such 


192         CHANGED   MEANING   OF   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

wordg,  for  example,  as  hxhr^dla,  or  'jrakiyysvstfia,  or 
eurpoiitsXia,  or  (jo:pi<r<rr,g,  ov  (f-x^oXafjTiy.oc,  in  Greek  ;  as  '  re- 
ligio,'  or  '  sacramentum,'  or  '  urbanitas,'  or  '  supersti- 
tio,'  in  Latin  ;  as  '  libertine,'  or  '  casuistry,'*  or  '  hu- 
manity,' or  '  humorous,'  or  '  danger,'  or  '  romance,'  in 
English,  and  endeavoring  to  trace  the  manner  in 
which  one  meaning  grew  out  of  and  superseded  an- 
other, and  how  they  arrived  at  that  use  in  which  they 
have  finally  rested  (if,  indeed,  before  our  English 
words  there  is  not  a  future  still),  we  shall  derive,  I 
believe,  amusement — I  am  sure,  instruction  ;  we  shall 
feel  that  we  are  really  getting  something,  increasing 
the  moral  and  intellectual  stores  of  our  minds ;  fur- 
nishing ourselves  with  that  which  may  hereafter  be 
of  service  to  ourselves,  may  be  of  service  to  others — 
than  which  there  can  be  no  feeling  more  pleasurable, 
none  more  delightful.  I  shall  be  glad  and  thankful 
if  you  can  feel  as  much  in  regard  of  that  lecture, 
which  I  now  bring  to  its  end. 

=*  See  Whewell's  History  of  Moral  Philosophy  in  England,  pp. 
xxvii,  xxxii. 


WRITING   AND   PRINTING.  193 


LECTURE   V. 

CHANGES   IN   THE   SPELLING   OF   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

When  I  announce  to  you  that  the  subject  of  ray 
lecture  to-day  will  be  English  orthography,  or  the 
spelling  of  words  in  our  native  language,  with  the 
alterations  which  this  has  undergone,  you  may  per- 
haps think  with  yourselves  that  a  weightier,  or,  if  not 
a  weightier,  at  all  events  a  more  interesting,  subject 
might  have  occupied  this  our  concluding  lecture.  I 
can  not  admit  it  to  be  wanting  either  in  importance 
or  in  interest.  Unimportant  it  certainly  is  not,  but 
might  well  engage,  as  it  often  has  engaged,  the  atten- 
tion of  those  with  far  higher  acquirements  than  any 
which  I  possess.  Uninteresting  it  may  be,  by  faults 
in  the  manner  of  treating  it ;  but  I  am  sure  it  ought 
as  little  to  be  this,  and  would  never  prove  so  in  com- 
petent hands.  Let  us,  then,  address  ourselves  to  this 
matter,  not  without  good  hope  that  it  may  yield  us 
both  profit  and  pleasure. 

I  know  not  who  it  was  that  said  :  "  The  invention 
of  printing  was  very  well ;  but,  as  compared  to  the 
invention  of  writing,  it  was  no  such  great  matter  after 
all."  Whoever  it  was  who  made  this  observation,  it 
is  clear  that  for  him  use  and  familiarity  had  not  oblit- 
erated the  wonder  which  there  is  in  that,  whereat  we 
probably  have  long  ceased  to  wonder  at  all — the 
power,  namely,  of  representing   sounds   by  written 

9 


194         CHANGED   SPELLING   OF   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

signs,  of  reproducing  for  the  eye  that  which  existed 
at  first  only  for  the  ear :  nor  was  the  estimate  which 
he  formed  of  the  relative  value  of  these  two  inven- 
tions other  than  a  just  one.  Writing,  indeed,  stands 
more  nearly  on  a  level  with  speaking,  and  deserves 
rather  to  be  compared  with  it,  than  with  printing  — 
which,  with  all  its  utility,  is  yet  of  altogether  another 
and  inferior  type  of  greatness  ;  or,  if  this  is  too  much 
to  claim  for  writing,  it  may  at  any  rate  be  affirmed 
to  stand  midway  between  the  other  two,  and  to  be 
as  much  superior  to  the  one  as  it  is  inferior  to  the 
other. 

The  intention  of  the  written  word  —  that  which 
presides  at  its  first  formation,  the  end  whereunto  it  is 
a  mean — is,  by  aid  of  symbols  agreed  on  before,  to 
represent  to  the  eye  with  the  greatest  accuracy  which 
i& possible  the  spoken  word. 

It  never  fulfils  this  intention  completely,  and  by 
degrees  more  and  more  imperfectly.  Short  as  man's 
spoken  word  often  falls  of  his  thought,  his  written 
word  falls  often  as  short  of  his  spoken.  Several  causes 
contribute  to  this.  In  the  first  place,  the  marks  of 
imperfection  and  infirmity  cleave  to  writing,  as  to 
every  other  invention  of  man.  All  alphabets  have 
been  left  incomplete.  They  have  superfluous  letters 
— letters,  that  is,  which  they  do  not  want,  because 
other  letters  already  represent  the  sound  which  they 
represent ;  they  have  dubious  letters — letters,  that  is, 
which  say  nothing  certain  about  the  sounds  they  stand 
for,  because  more  than  one  sound  is  represented  by 
them  (our  '  c,'  for  instance,  which  sometimes  has  the 
sound  of  '  s,'  as  in  '  city,'  sometimes  of '  k,'  as  in  '  cat)  ; 
they  are  deficient  in  letters — that  is,  the  language 


RISE   OF   PHONOGRAPHY.  195 

has  elementary  sounds  which  have  no  corresponding 
letters  appropriated  to  them,  and  can  only  be  repre- 
sented by  combinations  of  letters.  All  alphabets,  I 
believe,  have  some  of  these  faults,  and  not  a  few  of 
them  have  all,  and  more.  This,  then,  is  one  reason  ot 
the  im})erfcct  reproduction  of  the  spoken  word  by  the 
written.  But  another  is,  that  the  human  voice  is  so 
wonderfully  fine  and  flexible  an  organ,  is  able  to  mark 
such  subtile  and  delicate  distinctions  of  sound,  so  infi- 
nitely to  modify  and  vary  these  sounds,  that  were  an 
alphabet  complete  as  human  art  could  make  it,  did  it 
possess  eight-and-forty  instead  of  four-and-twenty  let- 
ters, there  would  still  remain  a  multitude  of  sounds 
which  it  could  only  approximately  give  back. 

But  there  is  a  further  cause  for  the  divergence 
which  comes  gradually  to  find  place  between  men's 
spoken  and  their  written  words.  What  men  do  often, 
they  will  seek  to  do  with  the  least  possible  trouble. 
There  is  nothing  which  they  do  oftener  than  repeat 
words :  they  will  seek  here,  then,  to  save  themselves 
pains ;  they  will  contract  two  or  more  syllables  into 
one  ('  toto  opere'  will  become  '  topper,'  '  vuestra  mer- 
ced'  '  usted,'  and  '  God  be  with  you'  '  good-by')  ;  they 
will  slur  over,  and  thus  after  a  while  cease  to  pro- 
nounce, certain  letters  ;  for  hard  letters  they  will  sub- 
stitute soft ;  for  those  which  require  a  certain  efibrt 
to  pronounce,  they  will  substitute  those  which  require 
little  or  none. 

And  thus,  as  the  result  of  these  causes,  a  gulf  be- 
tween the  written  and  spoken  word  will  not  merely 
exist ;  but  it  will  have  the  tendency  to  grow  ever 
wider  and  wider.  This  tendency,  indeed,  will  be 
partially   counterworked    by    approximations   which 


196         CHANGED   SPELLING   OP  ENGLISH    WORDS. 

from  time  to  time  will  by  silent  consent  be  made  of 
the  written  word  to  be  spoken ;  here  and  there  a  let- 
ter dropped  in  speech  will  be  dropped  also  in  writing, 
as  the  '  s '  in  so  many  French  words,  where  its  absence 
is  marked  by  a  circumflex  ;  a  new  shape,  contracted 
or  briefer,  which  a  word  has  taken  on  the  lips  of  men, 
will  find  its  representation  in  their  writing ;  as  '  chi- 
rurgeon'  will  not  merely  be  pronounced,  but  also  spelt, 
'  surgeon/  Still  for  all  this,  and  despite  of  these  par- 
tial readjustments  of  the  relations  between  the  two, 
the  anomalies  will  be  infinite ;  there  will  be  a  multi- 
tude of  written  letters  which  have  ceased  to  be  sounded 
letters ;  a  multitude  of  words  will  exist  in  one  shape 
upon  our  lips,  and  in  quite  another  in  our  books. 

It  is  inevitable  that  the  question  should  arise: 
"  Shall  these  anomalies  be  meddled  with  ?  shall  it  be 
attempted  to  remove  them,  and  bring  writing  and 
speech  into  harmony  and  consent — a  harmony  and 
consent  which  never,  indeed,  in  actual  fact,  at  any 
period  of  the  language  existed,  but  which  yet  may  be 
regarded  as  the  object  of  written  speech,  as  that  which 
it  was  intended  to  display  ?"  If  the  attempt  is  to  be 
made,  it  is  clear  that  it  can  only  be  made  in  one  way. 
The  question  is  not  open,  whether  Mohammed  shall 
go  to  the  mountain,  or  the  mountain  to  Mohammed. 
The  spoken  word  is  the  mountain  ;  it  will  not  stir  ;  it 
will  resist  all  interference.  It  feels  its  own  primary 
rights,  that  it  existed  the  first,  that  it  is,  so  to  speak, 
the  elder  brother ;  and  it  will  never  be  induced  to 
change  itself  for  the  purpose  of  conforming  and  com- 
plying with  the  written  word.  Men  will  not  be  per- 
suaded to  pronounce  '  wou/d'  and  '  deZ^t,'  because  they 
write  these  words  '  would'  and  '  debt'  severally  with 


THE   SPOKEN   AND   WRITTEN   WORD.  197 

an  /  and  with  a,  b :  but  perhaps  they  might  be  per- 
suaded to  write  '  woud'  and  '  det,'  because  they  pro- 
nounce so ;  and  in  like  manner  with  all  other  words, 
in  which  there  exists  at  present  a  chasm  between  the 
word  as  we  speak  it  and  the  word  as  we  write  it. 

Here  we  have  the  explanation  of  that  which  in  the 
history  of  almost  all  literatures  has  repeated  itself 
more  than  once,  namely,  the  endeavor  to  introduce 
phonetic  writing.  It  has  certain  plausibilities  to  rest 
on ;  it  has  its  appeal  to  the  unquestionable  fact  that 
the  written  word  was  intended '  to  picture  to  the  eye 
what  the  spoken  word  sounded  in  the  ear.  At  the 
same  time,  I  believe  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  in- 
troduce it ;  and  if  it  tvere  possible,  that  it  would  be 
most  undesirable,  and  this  for  two  reasons :  the  first 
being  that  the  losses  consequent  upon  its  introduction 
would  far  outweigh  the  gains,  even  supposing  those 
gains  as  great  as  the  advocates  of  the  scheme  promise ; 
the  second,  that  these  promised  gains  would  themselves 
be  only  very  partially  realized,  or  not  at  all. 

In  the  first  place,  I  believe  it  to  be  impossible.  It 
is  clear  that  such  a  scheme  must  begin  with  the  recon- 
struction of  the  alphabet.  The  first  thing  that  the 
phonographers  have  perceived  is  the  necessity  for  the 
creation  of  a  vast  number  of  new  signs,  the  poverty 
of  all  existing  alphabets  (at  any  rate  of  our  own)  not 
yielding  a  several  sign  for  all  the  several  sounds  in 
the  language.  Our  English  phonographers  have  there- 
fore had  to  invent  ten  of  these  new  signs  or  letters, 
which  are  henceforth  to  take  their  place  with  our 
a,  b,  c,  and  to  enjoy  equal  rights  with  them.  Reject- 
ing two  (q,  x),  and  adding  ten,  they  have  raised  their 
alphabet  from  twenty-six  letters  to  thirty-four.     But 


198         CHANGED   SPELLING   OF   ENGLLSH   WORDS. 

fco  procure  the  reception  of  such  a  reconstructed  alpha- 
bet is  simply  an  impossibility — as  much  an  impossi- 
bility as  would  be  the  reconstitution  of  the  structure 
of  the  language  in  any  points  where  it  was  manifestly 
deficient  or  illogical.  Sciolists  or  scholars  may  sit 
down  in  their  studies,  and  devise  these  new  letters, 
and  prove  that  we  need  them,  and  that  the  introduc- 
tion of  them  would  be  a  great  gain,  and  a  manifest 
improvement ;  and  this  may  be  all  very  true  :  but  if 
they  think  they  can  induce  a  people  to  adopt  them, 
they  know  little  of  how  closely  entwined  the  alphabet 
is  with  the  whole  innermost  life  of  a  people.  One 
may  freely  own  that  all  present  alphabets  are  redun- 
dant here,  are  deficient  there ;  our  English  perhaps 
is  as  greatly  at  fault  as  any,  and  with  that  we  have 
chiefly  to  do.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  it  has  more 
letters  than  one  to  express  one  and  the  same  sound ; 
that  it  has  only  one  letter  to  express  two  or  three 
sounds ;  that  it  has  sounds  which  are  only  capable  of 
being  expressed  at  all  by  awkward  and  roundabout 
expedients.  Yet  at  the  same  time  we  must  accept 
the  fact,  as  we  accept  any  other  which  it  is  out  of  our 
power  to  change — with  regret,  indeed,  but  with  a 
perfect  acquiescence  :  as  one  accepts  the  fact  that  Ire- 
land is  not  some  thirty  or  forty  miles  nearer  to  Eng- 
land ;  that  it  is  so  difficult  to  get  round  Cape  Horn ; 
that  the  climate  of  Africa  is  so  fatal  to  European  life. 
A  people  will  no  more  quit  their  alpliabet  than  they 
will  quit  their  language ;  they  will  no  more  consent 
to  modify  the  one  ab  extra  than  the  other.  Ca3sar 
avowed  that  with  all  his  power  he  could  not  introduce 
a  new  word,  and  certainly  Claudius  could  not  intro- 
duce a  new  letter.     Centuries  may  sanction  the  bring- 


LEARNING   TO   SPELL.  199 

ing  in  of  a  new  one,  or  the  dropping  of  an  old.  But 
to  imagine  that  it  is  possible  suddenly  to  introduce  a 
group  of  ten  new  letters,  as  these  reformers  propose 
—  they  might  just  as  feasibly  propose  that  the  English 
language  should  form  its  comparatives  and  superla- 
tives on  some  entirely  new  scheme,  say  in  Greek  fash- 
ion, by  the  terminations  '  oteros'  and  '  otatos  ;'  or  that 
we  should  agree  to  set  up  a  dual ;  or  that  our  substan- 
tives should  return  to  their  Anglo-Saxon  declensions. 
Any  one  of  these  or  like  proposals  would  not  betray 
a  whit  more  ignorance  of  the  eternal  laws  which  reg- 
ulate human  language,  and  of  the  limits  within  which 
deliberate  action  upon  it  is  possible,  than  does  this  of 
increasing  our  alphabet  by  ten  entirely  novel  signs. 

But  grant  it  possible  —  grant  our  six-and-twenty 
letters  to  have  so  little  sacredness  in  them  that  Eng- 
lishmen would  endure  a  crowd  of  upstart  interlopers 
to  mix  themselves  on  an  equal  footing  with  them — 
still  this  could  only  be  from  a  sense  of  the  greatness 
of  the  advantage  to  be  derived  from  this  introduction. 
Now,  the  vast  advantage  claimed  by  the  advocates  of 
the  system  is,  that  it  would  facilitate  the  learning  to 
read,  and  wholly  save  the  labor  of  learning  to  spell, 
which  "  on  the  present  plan  occupies,"  as  they  assure 
us,  "  at  the  very  lowest  calculation,  from  three  to  five 
years."  Spelling,  it  is  said,  would  no  more  need  to 
be  learned  at  all ;  since  whoever  knew  the  sound, 
would  necessarily  know  also  the  spelling,  this  being 
in  all  cases  in  perfect  conformity  with  that.  The  an- 
ticipation of  this  gain  rests  upon  two  assumptions 
which  are  tacitly  taken  for  granted,  but  both  of  them 
erroneous. 

The  first  of  these  assumptions  is,  that  all  men  pro- 


200    CHANGED  SPELLING  OF  ENGLISH  WORDS. 

nounce  all  words  alike  ;  so  that,  whenever  they  come 
to  spell  a  word,  they  will  exactly  agree  as  to  what 
the  outline  of  its  sound  is.  Now,  we  are  sure  men 
will  not  do  this,  from  the  fact  that,  before  there  was 
any  fixed  and  settled  orthography  in  our  language, 
when  therefore  everybody  was  more  or  less  a  phonog- 
rapher,  seeking  to  write  down  the  word  as  it  sounded 
to  him  (for  he  had  no  other  law  to  guide  him),  the 
variations  of  spelling  were  infinite.  Take,  for  in- 
stance, the  word  '  sudden,'  which  does  not  seem  to 
promise  any  great  scope  for  variety.  I  have  myself 
met  with  this  word  spelt  in  no  less  than  the  following 
fourteen  ways  among  our  early  writers :  '  sodain,' 
'  sodaine,' '  sodan,' '  sodayne,' '  sodden,' '  sodein,' '  sod- 
eine,'  '  soden,'  '  sodeyn,'  '  suddain,'  '  suddaine,'  '  sud- 
dein,'  '  sudden,'  '  sudeyn.'  Again,  in  how  many  ways 
was  Raleigh's  name  spelt,  or  Shakespeare's !  The 
same  is  evident  from  the  spelling  of  uneducated  per- 
sons in  our  own  day.  They  have  no  other  rule  but 
the  sound  to  guide  them.  How>js  it  that  they  do  not 
all  spell  alike  —  erroneously,  it  may  be,  as  having 
only  the  sound  for  their  guide,  but  still  falling  all 
into  exactly  the  same  errors  ?  They  not  merely  spell 
wrong,  which  might  be  laid  to  the  charge  of  our  per- 
verse system  of  spelling,  but  with  an  inexhaustible 
diversity  of  error,  and  that  too  in  case  of  simplest 
words.  Thus,  the  little  town  of  Woburn  would  seem 
to  give  small  room  for  caprice  in  spelling,  while  yet 
the  postmaster  there  has  made,  from  the  superscrip- 
tion of  letters  that  have  passed  through  his  hands,  a 
collection  of  no  less  than  two  hundred  and  forty-four 
varieties  of  ways  in  which  the  place  has  been  spelt  !* 

*  Notes  and  Queries,  No.  147. 


VARIETIES   IN   SPELLING.  201 

It  may  be  said  that  these  were  all  or  nearly  all  from 
the  letters  of  the  ignorant  and  uneducated.  Exactly 
so ;  but  it  is  for  their  sakes,  and  to  place  them  on  a 
level  with  the  educated,  or  rather  to  accelerate  their 
education  by  the  omission  of  a  useless  yet  troublesome 
discipline,  that  the  change  is  proposed.  I  wish  to 
show  you  that  after  the  change,  they  would  be  just  as 
much  or  almost  as  much  at  a  loss  in  their  spelling  as 
now. 

And  another  reason  which  would  make  it  just  as 
necessary  then  to  learn  orthography  as  now,  is  the 
following :  Pronunciation,  as  I  have  already  noticed, 
is  far  too  fine  and  subtile  a  thing  to  be  more  than 
approximated  to,  and  indicated  in,  the  written  letter. 
In  a  multitude  of  cases  the  difficulties  which  pronun- 
ciation presented  would  be  sought  to  be  overcome  in 
different  ways,  and  thus  different  spellings  would 
arise ;  or,  if  not  so,  one  would  have  to  be  arbitrarily 
selected,  and  would  have  need  to  be  learned,  just  as 
much  as  the  spelling  of  a  word  now  has  need  to  be 
learned.  I  will  only  ask  you,  in  proof  of  this  which 
I  affirm,  to  turn  to  any  pronouncing  dictionary.  That 
greatest  of  all  absurdities,  a  pronouncing  dictionary, 
may  be  of  some  service  to  you  in  this  matter ;  it  will 
certainly  be  of  no  service  to  you  in  any  other.  When 
you  mark  the  elaborate  and  yet  ineffectual  artifices  by 
which  it  toils  after  the  finer  distinctions  of  articula- 
tion, seeks  to  reproduce  in  letters  what  exists,  and 
can  only  exist,  as  the  spoken  tradition  of  pronuncia- 
tion, acquired  from  lip  to  lip,  capable  of  being  learned, 
but  incapable  of  being  taught ;  or  when  you  compare 
two  of  these  dictionaries  with  one  another,  and  mark 
the  entirely  different  schemes  and  combinations  of  Ict- 
'  9* 


202         CHANGED   SPELLING   OF   ENGLISH    WORDS. 

ters  which  they  have  for  representing  the  same  sound 
to  the  eye ;  you  will  then  perceive  how  idle  the  at- 
tempt to  make  the  written  in  language  commensurate 
with  the  sounded ;  you  will  own  that  not  merely  out 
of  human  caprice,  ignorance,  or  indolence,  the  former 
falls  short  of  and  difers  from  the  latter  ;  but  that  this 
lies  in  the  necessity  qf  things,  in  the  fact  that  man's 
voice  can  effect  a  great  deal  more  than  ever  his  letter 
can.*  You  will  then  perceive  that  there  would  be  as 
much,  or  nearly  as  much,  of  the  arbitrary  in  spelling 
which  calls  itself  phonetic  as  in  our  present ;  that 
spelling  would  have  to  be  learned  just  as  really  then 
as  now.  We  should  be  unable  to  dismiss  the  spelling- 
card  even  after  the  arrival  of  that  great  day,  when, 
for  example,  those  lines  of  Pope  which  hitherto  we 
have  thus  spelt  and  read — 

"But  errs  not  Nature  from  this  gracious  end, 
From  burning  suns  when  livid  deaths  descend, 
When  earthquakes  swallow,  or  when  tempests  sweep 
Towns  to  one  grave,  whole  nations  to  the  deep  V*  — 

when,  I  say,  instead  of  this,  they  should  present  them- 
selves to  our  eyes  in  the  following  attractive  form ; — 

"  B^t  "i  erz  not  nstymr  from  dis  gre/ys  end, 
from  b^rnir)  ssuz  hwen  livid  dets  disend, 
hwen  ertkweks  swolor,  or  hwen  tempests  swjp 
touiiz  tu  w^n  grev,  he-l  nejonz  tu  4e  djp." 

The  scheme  would  not,  then,  fulfil  its  promises.  Its 
vaunted  gains,  when  we  come  to  look  closely  at  them, 
disappear.  And  now  for  its  losses.  There  are  in 
every  language  a  vast  number  of  words,  which  the 
ear  does  not  distinguish  from  one  another,  but  which 

*  Sec  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson,  Croker's  edit.,  1848,  p.  233, 


LOSSES   OP  PHONETIC  SPELUNG.  203 

are  at  once  distinguishable  to  the  eye  by  the  spelling. 
I  will  only  instance  a  few  which  are  the  same  parts 
of  speech :  thus,  *  sun'  and  '  son  ;'  '  virge'  (virga,  now 
obsolete)  and  '  verge  ;'  '  reign,'  '  rain,'  and  '  rein ;' 
'  hair'  and  '  hare  ;'   '  plate'  and  '  plait ;'   '  moat'  and 

*  mote  ;'  '  pear'  and  '  pair  ;'  '  air'  and  '  heir  ;'  '  ark'  and 

*  arc  ;'  *  mite'  and  '  might ;'  '  pour'  and  '  pore  ;'  '  veil' 
and  '  vale  ;'  '  knight'  and  '  night ;'  '  knave'  and  '  nave ;' 
'  pier'  and  '  peer ;'  *  rite'  and  '  right ;'  '  site'  and '  sight ;' 
'  aisle'  and  '  isle  ;'  '  concent'  and  '  consent ;'  '  signet' 
and  '  cygnet.'  Now,  of  course,  it  is  a  real  disadvan- 
tage, and  may  be  the  cause  of  serious  confusion,  that 
there  should  be  words  in  spoken  language  of  entirely 
different  origin  and  meaning,  which  yet  can  not  in 
sound  be  differenced  from  one  another.  The  phonog- 
raphers  simply  propose  to  extend  this  disadvantage 
already  cleaving  to  our  spoken  language,  to  the  writ- 
ten language  as  well.  It  is  fault  enough  in  the  French 
language  that '  mere'  a  mother,  '  mer'  the  sea,  '  maire' 
a  mayor  of  a  town,  should  have  no  perceptible  differ- 
ence between  them  in  the  spoken  tongue ;  or,  again, 
that  the  same  should  find  place  in  respect  of  '  ver'  a 
worm, '  vert'  green,  '  verre'  a  glass,  '  vers'  a  verse. 
Surely  it  is  not  very  wise  to  propose  gratuitously  to 
extend  the  same  fault  to  the  written  language  as 
well ! 

This  loss  in  so  many  cases  of  the  power  of  discrimi- 
nating between  words,  which,  however  liable  to  con- 
fusion now  in  our  spoken  language,  are  liable  to  none 
in  our  written,  would  be  serious  enough ;  but  more 
serious  than  this  would  be  the  loss  in  so  many  cases 
of  all  which  visibly  connects  a  word  with  the  past — 
which  tells  its  history,  and  indicates  the  quarter  from 


204         CHANGED   SPELLING   OF   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

which  it  has  been  derived.  In  how  many  English 
words  a  letter  silent  to  the  ear,  is  yet  most  eloquent 
to  the  eye  ! — the  g-,  for  instance,  in  '  deign,'  '  feign,' 
'  reign,' '  impugn,'  telling  as  it  does  of '  dignor,' '  fingo,' 
*  regno,'  '  impugno ;'  even  as  the  h  in  '  debt,'  '  doubt,' 
is  not  idle,  but  tells  of  ^  debitum'  and  '  dubium.' 

At  present  it  is  the  written  word  which  is  in  all 
languages  their  conservative  element.  In  it  is  the 
abiding  witness  against  the  mutilations  or  other  capri- 
cious changes  in  their  shape  which  affectation,  folly, 
ignorance,  and  half-knowledge,  would  inti'oduce.  It 
is  not,  indeed,  always  able  to  hinder  the  final  adop- 
tion of  these  corrupter  forms,  but  does  not  fail  to  op- 
pose to  them  a  constant,  and  very  often  a  successful, 
resistance.  With  the  adoption  of  phonetic  spelling, 
this  witness  would  exist  no  longer;  whatever  was 
spoken  would  have  also  to  be  written,  let  it  be  never 
so  barbarous,  never  so  great  a  departure  from  the  true 
form  of  the  word.  Nor  is  it  merely  probable  that 
such  a  barbarizing  process,  such  an  adopting  and 
sanctioning  of  a  vulgarism,  might  take  place,  but 
among  phonographers  it  already  has  taken  place. 
We  all  probably  are  aware  that  there  is  a  vulgar  pro- 
nunciation of  the  word  '  Euro;?6?,'  as  though  it  were 
'  Eurwp.'  Now,  it  is  quite  possible  that  numerically 
more  persons  in  England  may  pronounce  the  word  in 
this  manner  than  in  the  right ;  and  therefore  the  pho- 
nographers are  only  true  to  their  principles  when  they 
spell  it  in  the  fashion  which  they  do,  '  Eurup,'  or,  in- 
deed, omitting  the  E  at  the  beginning,  '  "[Jrup,'*  with 
thus  the  life  of  the  first  syllable  assailed  no  less  than 

*  A  chief  phonographer  denies  that  this  is  the  present  spelling 
(1856)  of  'Europe.'     It  was  so  when  this  paragraph  was  w.ritten. 


LOSSES   BY   PHONETIC   SPELLING.  205 

that  of  the  second.  What  arc  the  consequences  ? 
First,  its  relations  with  the  old  mythology  are  at  once 
and  entirely  broken  off;  secondly,  its  most  probable 
etymology  from  two  Greek  words,  signifying  '  broad' 
and  'face'  —  Europe  being  so  called  from  the  broad 
line  ov  face  of  coast  which  our  continent  presented  to 
the  Asiatic  Greek — is  totally  obscured.  But  so  far 
from  the  spelling  servilely  following  the  pronuncia- 
tion, I  should  be  bold  to  affirm  that  if  ninety-nine  out 
of  every  hundred  persons  in  England  chose  to  call 
Europe  '•  IJrup,'  this  would  be  a  vulgarism  still,  against 
which  the  written  word  ought  to  maintain  its  protest, 
not  sinking  down  to  their  level,  but  rather  seeking  to 
elevate  them  to  its  own.* 

And  if  there  is  much  in  orthography  which  is  unset- 
tled now,  how  much  more  would  be  unsettled  then ! 
Inasmuch  as  the  pronunciation  of  words  is  continually 
altering,  their  spelling  would,  of  course,  have  contin- 
ually to  alter  too.  For  the  fact  that  pronunciation  is 
undergoing  constant  changes — although  changes  for 
the  most  part  unmarked,  or  marked  only  by  a  few — 

^  Quintilian  has  expressed  himself  with  the  true  dignity  of  a  scholar 
on  this  matter  {Inst.,  \.,  vi.,  45) :  "  Consuetudinem  sermonis  vocabo 
consensum  eruditorum ;  sicut  vivendi  consensum  bonorum."  How  dif- 
ferent from  innovations  like  this  the  changes  in  the  spelling  of  German 
whicli  J.  Grimm,  so  far  as  his  own  example  may  reach,  has  introduced ! 
—  and  tlie  still  bolder  and  more  extensive  ones  which  in  the  prefaco 
to  his  DeiUsches  Worterbuch  (pp.  54-62)  he  avows  his  desire  to  see  in- 
troduced, as  the  employment  of/,  not  merely  where  it  is  at  pi'esent 
used,  but  also  wherever  v  is  now  employed  ;  the  substituting  the  v, 
which  would  be  thus  disengaged,  for  w,  and  the  entire  dismissal  of  w. 
They  may  be  advisable,  or  they  may  not;  it  is  not  for  strangers  to 
offer  an  opinion  :  but  at  any  rate  they  are  not  a  seizing  of  the  fluctu- 
ating, superficial  accidents  of  the  present,  and  a  seeking  to  give  per- 
manent authority  to  these;  but  they  all  rest  on  a  deep  historic  study 
of  the  language,  and  of  the  true  genius  of  the  language. 


206         CHANGED   SPELLING   OP   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

would  be  abundantly  easy  to  prove.  Take  a  pronoun- 
cing dictionary  of  fifty  or  a  hundred  years  ago ;  turn 
to  almost  any  page,  and  you  will  observe  schemes  of 
pronunciation  there  recommended,  which  are  now 
merely  vulgarisms,  or  which  have  been  dropped  alto- 
gether. We  gather  from  a  discussion  in  Boswell's 
Life  of  Johnson*  that  in  his  time  *  great'  was  by  some 
of  the  best  speakers  of  the  language  pronounced '  gr^et,' 
not  '  grate.'  Pope  usually  rhymes  it  with  '  cheat/ 
'  complete,'  and  the  '  like  ;'  thus,  in  the  Dunciad : — 

"  Here  swells  the  shelf  with  Ogilby  the  great, 
There,  stamped  with  arras,  Newcastle  shines  complete." 

Again,  Pope  rhymes  '  obliged'  with  '  besieged ;'  and 
it  has  only  ceased  to  be  '  obleeged'  almost  in  our  own 
time.  Who  now  drinks  a  cup  of  '  ta,y'  ?  yet  there  is 
abundant  evidence  that  this  was  the  fashionable  pro- 
nunciation in  the  first  half  of  the  last  century ;  the 
word,  that  is,  was  still  regarded  as  French :  Locke 
writes  it '  the  ;'  and  in  Pope's  time,  though  no  longer 
written,  it  was  still  pronounced  so.  Take  this  coup- 
let of  his  in  proof : — 

"  Here  thou,  great  Anna,  whom  three  realms  obe^, 
Dost  sometimes  counsel  take,  and  sometimes  tea." 

So,  too,  a  pronunciation  which  still  survives,  though 
scarcely  among  well-educated  persons,  I  mean  '  Room' 
for  '  Rome,'  must  have  been  in  Shakespeare's  time  the 
predominant  one,  else  there  would  have  been  no  point 
in  that  play  on  words  where,  in  Julius  CcBsar,  Cassius, 
complaining  that  in  all  Rome  there  was  not  room  for 
a  single  man,  exclaims — 

"Now  is  it  Rome  indeed,  and  room  enough." 
*  Croker's  edit.,  1848,  pp.  57,  61,  233. 


PRONUNCIATION  ALTERS.  207 

Rogers,  too,  assures  us  that  in  his  youth  "  everybody 
said  '  Loniion,'  not '  London.'  Fox  said  '  Lonnon'  to 
the  last." 

The  following  quotation  from  Swift  will  prove  to 
you  that  I  have  been  only  employing  here  an  argument 
which  he  employed  long  ago  against  the  phonogra- 
phers  of  his  time.  He  exposes  thus  the  futility  of 
their  scheme  :*  "  Another  cause  which  has  contributed 
not  a  little  to  the  maiming  of  our  language,  is  a  fool- 
ish opinion  advanced  of  late  years  that  we  ought  to 
spell  exactly  as  we  speak :  which,  besides  the  obvious 
inconvenience  of  utterly  destroying  our  etymology, 
would  be  a  thing  we  should  never  see  an  end  of.  Not 
only  the  several  towns  and  counties  of  England  have 
a  diiTerent  way  of  pronouncing,  but  even  here  in  Lon- 
don they  clip  their  words  after  one  manner  about  the 
court,  another  in  the  city,  and  a  third  in  the  suburbs  , 
and  in  a  few  years,  it  is  probable,  will  all  differ  from 
themselves,  as  fancy  or  fashion  shall  direct ;  all  which, 
reduced  to  writing,  would  entirely  confound  orthog- 
raphy." 

This  much  I  have  thought  good  to  say  in  respect  of 
that  entire  revolution  in  English  orthography  which 
some  rash  innovators  have  proposed.  Let  me,  dismiss 
sing  them  and  their  innovations,  call  your  attention 
now  to  those  alterations  in  spelling  which  are  con- 
stantly going  forward,  at  some  periods  more  rapidly 
than  at  others,  but  wliich  never  wholly  cease  out  of  a 
language  ;  and  let  me  seek  to  trace,  where  this  is  pos- 
sible, the  motives  and  inducements  which  bring  them 

*  A  Proposal  for  co- reeling,  improving,  and  ascertaining  the  English 
Tongue,  1711  :  Works   vol.  ix.,  pp,  139-159. 


208         CHANGED   SPELLING  OF  ENGLISH  WORDS. 

about.  It  is  a  subject  which  none  can  neglect,  who 
desire  to  obtain  even  a  tolerably  accurate  acquaint- 
ance with  their  native  tongue.  Some  principles  have 
been  laid  down  in  the  course  of  what  has  been  said 
already,  that  may  help  us  to  judge  whether  the  changes 
which  have  found  place  in  our  own  have  been  for  bet- 
ter or  for  worse.  We  shall  find,  if  I  am  not  mistaken, 
of  both  kinds. 

There  are  alterations  in  spelling  which  are  for  the 
worse.  Thus,  an  altered  spelling  will  sometimes  ob- 
scure the  origin  of  a  word,  concealing  it  from  those 
who,  but  for  this,  would  at  once  have  known  whence 
and  what  it  was,  and  would  have  found  both  pleasure 
and  profit  in  this  knowledge.  I  need  not  say  that  in 
all  those  cases  where  the  earlier  spelling  revealed  the 
secret  of  the  word,  told  its  history,  which  the  latter 
defaces  or  conceals,  the  change  has  been  injurious, 
and  is  to  be  regretted  ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  where 
it  has  thoroughly  established  itself,  there  is  nothing 
to  do  but  to  acquiesce  in  it :  the  endeavor  to  undo  it 
would  be  absurd.  Thus,  when  '  grocer'  was  spelt 
'  grosser,'  it  was  comparatively  easy  to  see  that  he 
first  had  his  name,  because  he  sold  his  wares  not  by 
retail,  but  in  the  gross.  '  Co:2;comb'  tells  us  nothing 
now ;  but  it  did  when  spelt,  as  it  used  to  be,  '  cocks- 
comb,'  the  comb  of  a  cock  being  then  an  ensign  or 
token  which  the  fool  was  accustomed  to  wear.  In 
'  grogram'  we  are  entirely  to  seek  for  the  derivation ; 
but  in  '  grograii'  or  '  grogram,'  as  earlier  it  was  spelt, 
one  could  scarcely  miss  '  grosgrain,'  the  stuff  of  a 
coarse  grain  or  woof.  How  many  now  understand 
'  woodbine'  ?  but  who  could  have  helped  understand- 
ing '  woodbind'  (Ben  Jonson)  ? 


209 

*  Figmy^  used  formerly  to  be  spelt  '  pygmy  ;'  and  so 
long  as  it  was  so,  no  Greek  scholar  could  see  the  word, 
but  at  once  he  knew  that  by  it  were  indicated  mani- 
kins whose  measure  in  height  was  no  greater  than 
that  of  a  man's  arm  from  the  elbow  fo  the  closed  Jist* 
Now  he  may  know  this  in  other  ways  ;  but  the  word 
itself,  so  long  as  he  assumes  it  to  be  rightly  spelt,  tells 
him  nothing.  Or,  again,  the  old  spelling,  '  diamaw/,' 
was  preferable  to  the  modern  '  diamond.^  It  was 
preferable,  because  it  told  more  of  the  quarter  whence 
the  word  had  reached  us.  '  Diamant'  and  '  adamant' 
are,  in  fact,  only  two  different  appropriations  of  one 
and  the  same  Greek,  which  afterward  became  a  Latin, 
word.  The  primary  meaning  of  '  adamant'  is,  as  you 
know,  the  untameable,  and  it  was  a  name  given  at 
first  to  steel  as  the  hardest  of  metals ;  but  afterward 
transferred!  to  the  most  precious  among  all  the  pre- 
cious stones  —  as  that  which  in  power  of  resistance 
surpassed  everything  besides. 

Neither  are  new  spellings  to  be  commended,  which 
obliterate  or  obscure  the  relationship  of  a  word  with 
others  to  which  it  is  really  allied ;  separating  from 
one  another,  for  those  not  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
the  subject,  words  of  the  same  family.  Thus,  when 
'yaw'  was  spelt  '  c/iaw,'  no  one  could  miss  its  connec- 
tion with  the  verb  '  to  chew.'     Now,  probably  ninety- 

*  Pygmaei,  quasi  Cubitales  (Augustine). 

t  First  so  used  by  Theophrastus  in  Greek,  and  by  Pliny  in  Latin. 
The  real  identity  of  the  two  words  explains  Milton's  use  of  '  diamond* 
in  Paradise  Lost,  book  vii. ;  and  also  in  that  sublime  passage  in  his 
Apologij  for  Smecfymnuns :  "  Then  zeal,  whose  substance  is  ethereal, 
arming  in  complete  diamond."  Dioz  (  Worterbuch  d.  Roman.  Sjnachen, 
p.  123)  supposes,  not  very  probably,  that  it  was  under  a  certain  inllu- 
ence  of  *  diafano,'  the  translucent,  ihat  '  adamante'  was  in  the  Italian, 
■whence  we  have  derived  the  word,  changed  into  '  diavaixnic' 


210    CHANGED  SPELLING  OF  ENGLISH  WORDS. 

nine  out  of  a  hundred  who  use  both  words,  iare  entire- 
ly unaware  of  any  relationship  between  them.  It  is 
the  same  with  '  cousin'  (consanguineus),  and  '  to  cozen' 
or  to  deceive.  I  do  not  propose  to  determine  which 
of  these  words  should  conform  itself  to  the  spelling 
of  the  other.  There  was  great  irregularity  in  the 
spelling  of  both  from  the  first ;  yet  for  all  this,  it  was 
then  better  than  now,  when  a  permanent  distinction 
has  established  itself  between  them,  keeping  out  of 
sight  that  '  to  cozen'  is  in  all  likelihood  to  deceive 
under  show  of  kindred  and  affinity  ;  w^hich,  if  it  be  so, 
Shakespeare's  words  — 

"  Cousins  indeed,  aud  by  their  uncle  cozened 
Of  comfort"*  — 

will  be  found  to  contain  not  a  pun,  but  an  etymology. 
The  real  relation  between  '  bliss'  and  '  to  bless'  is  in 
like  manner  at  present  obscured. 

The  omission  of  a  letter,  or  the  addition  of  a  letter, 
may  each  effectually  do  its  work  in  keeping  out  of 
sight  the  true  character  and  origin  of  a  word.  Thus 
the  omission  of  a  letter.  When  the  first  syllable  of 
'  bran-new'  was  spelt  '■  branch'  with  a  final  d,  '  branch- 
new,'  how  vigorous  an  image  did  the  word  contain. 
The  '  brand'  is  the  fire,  and  '  brand-new'  equivalent  to 
'fire-new'  (Shakespeare),  is  that  which  is  fresh  and 
bright,  as  being  newly  come  from  the  forge  and  fire. 
As  now  spelt,  '  bran-new'  conveys  to  us  no  image  at 
all.  • 

Again,  you  have  the  word  '  scrip'  —  as  a  '  scrip'  of 
paper,  government  '  scrip.'  Is  this  the  same  word 
with  the  Saxon  '  scrip,'  a  wallet,  having  in  some 
strange  manner  obtained  these  meanings  so  diflerent 

^=  Richard  III.,  act  iv.,  scene  iv. 


SCRIP,    AFRAID,   SCKXT.  211 

and  so  remote  ?  Have  we  here  only  two  different 
applications  of  one  and  the  same  word,  or  two  homo- 
nyms, wholly  different  words,  though  spelt  alike? 
We  have  only  to  note  the  way  in  which  the  first  of 
these  '  scrips'  used  to  be  written,  namely  with  a  final 
t  not  '  scrip'  but  '  scrips,'  and  we  are  at  once  able  to 
answer  the  question.  This  '  scrip'  is  a  Latin,  as  the 
other  is  an  Anglo-Saxon,  word,  and  meant  at  first 
simply  a  ivrilten  (scripta)  piece  of  paper — a  circum- 
stance which  since  the  omission  of  the  final  t  may 
easily  escape  our  knowledge.  '  Afraid'  was  spelt  much 
better  in  old  times  with  the  double  jf,  than  with  the 
single  /  as  now.  It  was  then  clear  that  it  was  not 
another  form  of  '  afeard,'  but  wholly  separate  from  it, 
the  participle  of  the  verb  '  to  affray,'  '  affrayer,'  or,  as 
it  is  now  written,  *  effrayer.' 

In  the  cases  hitherto  adduced,  it  has  been  the  omis- 
sion of  a  letter  which  has  clouded  and  concealed  the 
etymology.  The  intrusiou  of  a  letter  sometimes  does 
the  same.  Thus  in  the  early  editions  of  Paradise 
Lost,  and  in  all  writers  of  that  time,  you  would  find 
'  scent,'  an  odor,  spelt '  sent.'  It  was  better  so ;  there 
is  no  other  noun  substantive  '  sent,'  with  which  it  is 
in  danger  of  being  confounded  ;  while  its  relation  with 
'  sentio,'  with  '  resent,'*  '  dissent,^  and  the  like,  is  put 
out  of  sight  by  its  novel  spelling ;  the  intrusive  c  serves 
only  to  mislead.     The  same  thing  was  attempted  with 

*  How  close  this  relationship  was  once,  not  merely  in  respect  of 
etymology,  but  also  of  significance,  a  passage  like  this  will  prove : 
"  Perchance,  as  vultures  are  said  to  smell  the  earthiness  of  a  dying 
corpse,  so  this  bird  of  prey  [the  evil  spirit  which  personated  Samuel, 
1  Sam.  xxviii,  14]  resented  a  worse  than  earthly  savor  in  the  soul  of 
Saul,  as  evidence  of  his  death  at  hand."  (Fuller,  The  Profane  State, 
b.  5.,  c.  4.) 


212    CHANGED  SPELLING  OF  ENGLISH  WORDS. 

'  site,'  '  situate,'  '  situation,'  spelt  for  a  time  by  many, 
'  scite,' '  scituate,' '  scituation  ;'  but  it  did  not  continue 
with  these. 

Again,  '  whole'  in  Wiclif's  Bible,  and  indeed  much 
later,  occasionally  as  far  down  as  Spenser,  is  spelt 
'  hole,'  without  the  w  at  the  beginning.  The  present 
orthography  may  have  the  advantage  of  at  once  dis- 
tinguishing the  word  to  the  eye  from  any  other ;  but 
at  the  same  time  the  initial  w,  now  prefixed,  hides  its 
relation  to.  the  verb  '  to  heal,'  with  which  it  is  closely 
allied.  The  '  whole'  man  is  he  whose  hurt  is  '  healed' 
or  covered  (we  say  of  the  convalescent  that  he  '  re- 
covers')  ;  '  whole'  being  closely  allied  to  '  hale'  (inte- 
ger), from  which  also  from  its  modern  spelling  it  is 
divided.  '  Wholesome'  has  naturally  followed  the  for- 
tunes of '  whole  ;'  it  was  spelt '  holsome'  once. 

Of  '  island'  too  our  present  spelling  is  inferior  to 
the  old,  inasmuch  as  it  suggests  a  hybrid  formation, 
as  though  the  word  were  made  up  of  the  Latin  '  insula,' 
and  the  Saxon  '  land.'  It  is  quite  true  that  '  isle'  is 
in  relation  with,  and  descent  from,  '  insula,'  '  isola,' 
'  lie  ;'  and  hence  probably  the  misspelling  of  '  island.' 
This  last,  however,  has  nothing  to  do  with  '  insula,' 
being  identical  with  the  German  '  eiland,'  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  ^  ealand,'  and  signifying  the  sea-land,  or  land 
girt  round  with  the  sea,  just  as  '  insula'  =  in  salo. 
And  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  this  s  in  the  first  sylla- 
ble of  '  island'  is  quite  of  modern  introduction.  In 
all  the  early  versions  of  the  Scriptures,  and  in  the 
authorized  version  as  at  first  set  forth,  it  is  '  iland ;' 
while  in  proof  that  this  is  not  accidental,  it  may  be 
observed  that,  while  '  iland'  has  not  the  s,  '  isle'  has 
it  (see  Rev.  i.  9).     'Hand,'  indeed,  is  the  spelling 


WRONGLY-ASSUMED   DERIVATION   OP   WORDS.      213 

which  we  meet  with  far  down  into  the  seventeenth 
century. 

What  has  just  been  said  of  '  island'  leads  me  as  by 
a  natural  transition  to  observe  that  one  of  the  most 
frequent  causes  of  alteration  in  the  spelling  of  a  word 
is  a  wrongly-assumed  derivation.  It  is  then  sought  to 
bring  the  word  into  harmony  with,  and  to  make  it  by 
its  spelling  suggest,  this  derivation,  which  has  been 
erroneously  thrust  upon  it.  Here  is  a  subject  which, 
followed  out  as  it  deserves,  would  form  no  uninterest- 
ing nor  yet  uninstructive  chapter  in  the  history  of  lan- 
guage. Let  me  offer  one  or  two  small  contributions 
to  it ;  noting  first  by  the  way  how  remarkable  an 
evidence  we  have  in  this  fact,  of  the  manner  in  which 
not  the  learned  only,  but  all  persons  learned  and  un- 
learned alike,  crave  to  have  a  meaning  in  the  words 
which  they  employ,  crave  to  have  these  words  not 
body  alone,  but  body  and  soul.  What  an  attestation, 
I  say,  of  this  lies  in  the  fact  that  where  a  word  in  its 
proper  derivation  is  unintelligible  to  them,  they  will 
shape  and  mould  it  into  some  other  form,  not  enduring 
that  it  should  be  a  mere  inert  sound  without  sense  in 
their  ears ;  and  if  they  do  not  know  its  right  origin, 
will  rather  put  into  it  a  wrong  one,  than  that  it  should 
have  for  them  no  meaning,  and  suggest  no  derivation 
at  all.* 

There  is  probably  no  language  in  which  such  a 
process  has  not  been  going  forward ;  in  which  it  is 
not  the  explanation,  in  a  vast  number  of  instances,  of 
changes  in  spelling  and  even  in  form,  which  words 
have  undergone.     I  will  offer  a  few  examples  of  it 

*  Dicz  looks  with  mucli  favor  on  this  process,  and  calls  it,  cia 
sinnreiches  mittel  fremdlinge  ganz  heimisch  zu  raachen. 


214    CHANGED  SPELLING  OF  ENGLISH  WORDS. 

from  foreign  tongues,  before  adducing  any  from  our 
own.  '  Pyramid'  is  a  word,  the  spelling  of  which  was 
affected  in  the  Greek  by  an  erroneous  assumption  of 
its  derivation ;  the  consequences  of  this  error  surviving 
in  our  own  word  to  the  present  day.  It  is  spelt  by 
ns  with  a  y  in  the  first  syllable,  as  it  was  spelt  with 
the  u  corresponding  in  the  Greek.  But  why  was  this  ? 
It  was  because  the  Greeks  assumed  that  the  pyramids 
were  so  named  from  their  having  the  appearance  of 
flame  going  up  into  a  point,*  and  so  they  spelt  '  pyra- 
mid' that  they  might  find  -rup  or  '  pyre'  in  it ;  while  in 
fact  the  word  '  pyramid,'  as  those  best  qualified  to 
speak  on  the  matter  declare  to  us,  has  nothing  to  do 
with  flame  or  fire  at  all ;  being  an  Egyptian  word  of 
quite  a  different  signification,  and  the  Coptic  letters 
being  much  better  represented  by  the  diphthong  '-  ei' 
than  by  the  letter  y,  as  no  doubt,  but  for  this  mistaken 
notion  of  what  the  word  was  intended  to  mean,  they 
would  have  been. 

Once  more  —  the  form  '•  Hierosolyma,'  wherein  the 
Greeks  reproduced  the  Hebrew  'Jerusalem,'  was  in- 
tended in  all  probability  to  express  that  the  city  so 
called  was  the  sacred  city  of  the  Solymi.^  At  all 
events  the  intention  not  merely  of  reproducing  the 
Hebrew  word,  but  also  of  making  it  significant  in 
Greek,  of  finding  Ispov  in  it,  is  plainly  discernible. 
For  indeed  the  Greeks  were  exceedingly  intolerant 
of  foreign  words,  till  they  had  laid  aside  their  foreign 
appearance  —  of  all  words  which  they  could  not  thus 
quicken  with  a  Greek  soul ;  and,  with  a  very  char- 
acteristic vanity,  an  ignoring  of  all  other  tongues  but 

*  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  xxii.,  15,  28. 
t  Tacitus,  Hist.,  v.,  2. 


TARTAR,   TARTARY.  215 

their  own,  assumed  with  no  apparent  misgivings  that 
all  words,  from  whatever  quarter  derived,  were  to  be 
explained  by  Greek  etymologies.* 

'  Tartar'  is  another  word,  of  which  it  is  at  least 
possible  that  a  wrongly-assumed  derivation  has  mod- 
ified the  spelling,  and  indeed  not  the  spelling  only, 
but  the  very  shape  in  which  we  now  possess  it.  To 
many  among  us  it  may  be  known  that  the  people 
designated  by  this  appellation  are  not  properly  '  Tar- 
tars,' but  '  Tatars  ;'  and  you  sometimes  perhaps  have 
noted  the  omission  of  the  r  on  the  part  of  those  who 
are  curious  in  their  spelling.  How  then,  it  may  be 
asked,  did  the  form  '  Tartar'  arise  ?     When  the  ter- 

*Let  me  illustrate  this  by  further  instances  in  a  note.  Thus 
PovTvpof,  from  which,  through  the  Latin,  our  *  butter'  has  descended 
to  us,  is  borrowed,  as  Pliny  {Hist.  Nat.  xxviii.  9)  tells  us,  from  a 
Scythian  word,  now  to  us  unknown :  yet  it  is  sufficiently  plain  that 
the  Greeks  so  shaped  it  and  spelt  it  as  to  contain  apparent  allusion  to 
cow  and  cheese ;  there  is  in  3vrvpov  an  evident  feeling  after  0ovi  and 
Tvpdv.  Bozra,  meaning  citadel  in  Hebrew  and  Phoenician,  and  the 
name,  no  doubt,  which  the  citadel  of  Carthage  bore,  becomes  Bupo-a 
on  Greek  lips ;  and  then  the  well  known  legend  of  the  ox-hide  was 
invented  upon  the  name ;  not  having  suggested,  but  being  itself  sug- 
gested by  it.  Herodian  (v.  6)  reproduces  the  name  of  the  Syrian 
goddess  Astarte  in  a  shape  that  is  significant  also  for  Greek  ears  — 
'Aarpoipx.ri.  the  Star-rulcr  or  Star-queen.  When  the  apostate  and 
hellenizing  Jews  assumed  Greek  names,  'Eliakim'  or  "Whom  God 
has  set,"  became  '  Alcimus'  (aX/ci/ioc)  or  The  Strong  (1  Mace.  vii.  5). 
Latin  examples  in  like  kind  are  *  comissatio,'  spelt  continually 
'  comessatio,'  as  though  it  were  connected  wirh  '  camedo,'  to  cat,  being 
indeed  the  substantive  from  the  verb  *  comissari'  (~  Kf^^.-i^eti^),  to  revel ; 
and  'orichalcum,'  spelt  often  'awrichalcum,'  as  though  it  were  a  com- 
posite metal  of  "mingled  gold  and  brass;  being  indeed  the  mountain 
brass  [opEixa^^o^).  The  miracle  pl»y,  which  is  called  '  mystere'  in 
French,  whence  our  English  'mystery,'  was  originally  written  mistere, 
being  properly  derived  from  'ministere,'  and  having  its  name  because 
tlie  clergy,  the  ministri  ecclesiae,  conducted  it.  This  was  forgotten, 
and  it  then  took  its  present  form  of  '  mystery,'  as  though  the  mysteries 
of  the  faith  were  in  it  set  forth. 


216         CHANGED   SPELLING   OF   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

rible  hordes  of  middle  Asia  burst  in  upon  civilized 
Europe  in  the  thirteenth  century,  many  beheld  in  the 
ravages  of  their  innumerable  cavalry  a  fulfilment  of 
that  prophetic  word  in  the  Revelation  (chap,  ix.)  con- 
cerning the  opening  of  the  bottomless  pit ;  and  from 
this  belief  ensued  the  change  of  their  name  from  '  Ta- 
tars' to  '  Tartars,'  which  was  thus  put  into  closer  re- 
lation with  '  Tartarus'  or  hell,  out  of  which  their  mul- 
titudes were  supposed  to  have  proceeded.* 

Another  good  example  in  the  same  kind  is  the  Ger- 
man word  '  siindflut,'  the  Deluge,  which  is  now  so 
spelt  as  to  signify  a  '  sinflood,'  the  plague  or  flood  of 
waters  brought  on  the  world  by  the  sins  of  mankind ; 
and  probably  some  of  us  have  before  this  admired  the 
pregnant  significance  of  the  word.  Yet  the  old  High 
German  word  had  originally  no  such  intention  ;  it  was 
spelt  '  Sinfluot,'  that  is,  the  great  flood ;  and  as  late 
as  Luther,  indeed  in  Luther's  own  translation  of  the 
Bible,  is  so  spelt  as  to  make  plain  that  the  notion  of 
a  '  .s-m-flood'  had  not  yet  found  its  way  into,  even  as 
it  had  not  affected  the  spelling  of  the  word.f 

But  to  look  now  nearer  home  for  our  examples. 
The  little  raisins  brought  from  Greece,  which  play  so 
important  a  part  in  one  of  the  national  dishes  of  Eng- 
land, the  Christmas  plum-pudding,  used  to  be  called 
'  corinths  ;'  and  so  you  would  find  them  in  mercantile 
lists  of  a  hundred  years  ago :  either  that  for  the  most 

*  We  have  here,  in  this  bnngin<?  of  the  words  by  their  supposed 
etymology  together,  the  explanation  of  the  fact  that  Spenser  [Fairy 
Queen,  i.,  7.  44),  Middleton  (Works,  vol.  v.,  pp.  524,  .528,  538 j,  and 
others  employ  *  Tartary'  as  equivalent  to  '  Tartarus'  or  hell. 

t  For  a  full  discussion  of  this  matter  and  fixing  of  the  period  at 
which  '  sinfluot'  became  '  siindflut,'  see  the  Theol.  Stiid.  u.  Krit.  vol.  vii., 
p.  613. 


COURT-CARDS  ONCE  COAT-CARDS.       217 

part  they  were  shipped  from  Corinth,  the  principal 
commercial  city  in  Greece,  or  because  they  grew  in 
large  abundance  in  the  immediate  district  round  about 
it.  Their  likeness  in  shape  and  size  and  general  ap- 
pearance to  our  own  currants,  working  together  with 
the  ignorance  of  the  great  majority  of  English  people 
about  any  such  place  as  Corinth,  soon  brought  the 
name  *  corinths'  into  *  currants,'  which  now  with  a 
certain  unfitness  they  bear ;  being  not  currants  at  all, 
but  dried  grapes,  though  grapes  of  diminutive  size. 

'  Court-cards,^  that  is  the  king,  queen,  and  knave,  in 
each  suit,  were  once  '  coat-csirds  ;'*  having  their  name 
from  the  long  splendid  '  coat'  (vestis  talaris)  with 
which  they  were  arrayed.  Probably  '  coat'  after  a 
while  did  not  perfectly  convey  its  original  meaning 
and  intention ;  being  no  more  in  common  use  for  the 
long  garment  reaching  down  to  the  heels ;  and  then 
'  coat'  was  easily  (exchanged  for  '  court,'  as  the  word 
is  now  both  spelt  and  pronounced,  seeing  that  nowhere 
so  fitly  as  in  a  court  should  such  splendidly-arrayed 
personages  be  found.  A  public  house  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  London  having  a  few  years  since  for  its 
sign  "  The  George  Canning^^  is  already  "  The  George 
and  Cannon^'' — so  rapidly  do  these  transformations 
proceed,  so  soon  is  that  forgotten  which  we  suppose 
would  never  be  forgotten.  "  Welsh  rarebiV  becomes 
"Welsh  rabbit r  and  '-farced^  or  stufi'ed  'meat'  be- 
comes '-^forced  meat."  Even  the  mere  determination 
to  make  a  word  look  English,  to  put  it  into  an  English 
shape,  without  thereby  so  much  as  seeming  to  attain 
any  result  in  the  way  of  etymology,  this  is  very  often 
sufficient  to  bring  about  a  change  in  its  spelling,  and 

*  Ben  Jonson,  Tlte  New  Inn,  act  i.,  scene  i. 

10 


218    CHANGED  SPELLING  OF  ENGLISH  WORDS. 

even  in  its  form.*  It  is  thus  that  '  sipahi'  has  become 
*  sepoy  :'  and  only  so  could  '  weissager'  have  taken  its 
present  form  of '  wiseacre. 'f 

It  is  very  uncommon  for  a  word,  while  it  is  derived 
from  one  word,  to  receive  a  certain  impulse  and  mod- 
ification from  another.  This  extends  sometimes  be- 
yond the  spelling,  and  in  cases  whore  it  does  so,  would 
hardly  belong  to  our  present  theme.  Still  I  may  no- 
tice an  instance  or  two.  Thus  our  '  obsequies'  is  the 
Latin  '  exequiae,'  but  formed  under  a  certain  impulse 
of  '  obsequium,'  and  seeking  to  express  the  observant 
honor  of  that  word.  '  To  refuse'  is  '  recusare,'  while 
yet  it  has  derived  the  /  of  its  second  syllable  from 
'  refutare ;'  it  is  a  medley  of  the  two.  The  French 
'  rame,'  an  oar,  is  '  remus,'  but  that  modified  by  an 
unconscious  recollection  of  '  ramus.'  '  Orange'  is  no 
doubt  a  Persian  word,  which  has  reached  us  through 
the  Arabic,  and  which  the  Spanish  '  naranja'  more 
nearly  represents  than  any  form  of  it  existing  in  the 
other  languages  of  Europe.  But  what  so  natural  as 
to  think  of  the  orange  as  the  golden  fruit,  especially 
when  the  "  aurea  mala"  of  the  Hesperides  were  fa- 
miliar to  all  antiquity  ?  There  can  not  be  a  doubt 
that '  aurum,'  '  or,'  made  themselves  felt  in  the  shapes 

*  '  Leghorn'  is  sometimes  quoted  as  an  example  of  this,  but  erro- 
neously ;  for,  as  Admiral  Smyth  has  shown  ( The  Mediterranean,  p. 
409),  'Livorno'  is  itself  rather  the  modern  corruption,  and  'Ligorno* 
the  name  found  on  the  earlier  charts. 

t  Exactly  the  same  happens  in  other  languages  :  thus,  *  armbrust/ 
a  crossbow,  looks  German  enough,  and  yet  has  nothing  to  do  witL 
'arm'  or  *  brust,'  being  a  contraction  of  'arcubalista,'  but  a  contrac- 
tion under  these  influences.  As  little  has  '  abenteuer'  anything  to  do 
with  '  abend'  or  '  theuer,'  however  it  may  seem  to  be  connected  with 
them,  being  indeed  the  Proven§al  'adventura.'  And  'weissager"'  in 
its  earlier  forms  had  nothing  in  common  with  '  sagen.' 


TRANSFORMATION   OF   WORDS.  219 

which  the  word  assumed  in  the  languages  of  the  West, 
and  that  here  we  have  the  explanation  of  the  change 
in  the  first  syllable,  as  in  the  low  Latin  '  aurantium,' 
'  orangia,'  and  in  the  French  *  orange,'  which  has  given 
us  our  own. 

It  is  foreign  words,  or  words  adopted  from  foreign 
languages,  as  might  beforehand  be  expected,  which 
are  especially  subjected  to  such  transformations  as 
these.  The  soul  which  the  word  once  had  in  its  own 
language  having,  for  as  many  as  do  not  know  that 
language,  departed  from  it,  or  at  least  not  being  now 
any  more  to  be  recognised  by  such  as  employ  the 
word,  these  are  not  satisfied  till  they  have  put  another 
soul  into  it,  and  it  has  thus  become  alive  to  them 
again.  Thus — to  take  first  one  or  two  very  familiar 
instances,  but  which  serve  as  well  as  any  other  to 
illustrate  my  position — the  Bellerophon  becomes  for 
our  sailors  the  '  Billy  Ruffian,'  for  what  can  they  know 
of  the  Greek  mythology,  or  of  the  slayer  of  Chimaera  ? 
An  iron  steamer,  the  Hirondelle,  now  or  lately  plying 
on  the  Tyne,  is  the  '  Iron  Devil.'  '  Contre  danse,' 
or  dance  in  which  the  parties  stand  face  to  face  with 
one  another,  and  which  ought  to  have  appeared  in 
English  as  '  counter  dance,'  does  become  '  country 
dance,'*  as  though  it  were  the  dance  of  the  country- 

*  It  is  upon  this  word  that  De  Quincey  (Life  and  Manners,  p.  70, 
American  edition)  says  excellently  well :  "  It  is  in  fact  by  such  cor- 
ruptions, by  offsets  upon  an  old  stock,  arisinj^  through  ignorance  or 
mispronunciation  originally,  that  every  language  is  frequently  en- 
riched ;  and  new  modifications  of  thought,  unfolding  themselves  in 
the  progi-ess  of  society,  generate  for  themselves  concurrently  appro- 
priate expressions It  must  not  be  allowed  to  weigh  against  a 

word  once  fairly  naturalized  by  all,  that  originally  it  crept  in  upon  an 
abuse  or  a  corruption.  Prescription  is  as  strong  a  ground  of  legiti- 
mation, in  a  case  of  this  nature,  as  it  is  in  law.     And  the  old  axiom 


220    CHANGED  SPELLING  OF  ENGLISH  WORDS. 

folk  and  rural  districts,  as  distinguished  from  the 
quadrille,  and  waltz,  and  more  artificial  dances,  of  the 
town.  A  well-known  rose,  the  "  rose  des  quatre  sai- 
sons,''^  or  of  the  four  seasons,  becomes  on  the  lips  of 
some  of  our  gardeners  the  "  rose  of  the  quarter  ses- 
sions,^^  though  here  it  is  probable  that  the  eye  has 
misled,  rather  than  the  ear.  '  Dent  de  lion'  (it  is 
spelt  '  dentdelyon'  in  our  early  writers)  becomes 
'  dandylion ;'  "  chaude  melee,"  or  an  affray  in  hot 
blood,  "  chance-medley ;"  '  causey'  (chaussee)  becomes 
'  causeway,'  '  rachitis'  '  rickets,'  and  in  French  '  man- 
dragora'  '  main  de  gloire.' 

'  Necromancy'  is  another  word  which,  if  not  now, 
yet  for  a  long  period,  was  erroneously  spelt,  and  in- 
deed assumed  a  different  shape,  under  the  influence 
of  an  erroneous  derivation  ;  which,  curiously  enough, 
even  now  that  it  has  been  dismissed,  has  left  behind 
it  the  marks  of  its  presence,  in  our  common  phrase, 
*'  the  black  art."  I  need  hardly  remind  you  that 
'  necromancy'  is  a  Greek  word,  which  signifies,  ac- 
cording to  its  proper  meaning,  a  prophesying  by  aid 
of  the  dead,  or  that  it  rests  on  the  presumed  power  of 
raising  up  by  potent  spells  the  dead,  and  compelling 
them  to  give  answers  about  things  to  come.  We  all 
know  that  it  was  supposed  possible  to  exercise  such 
power ;  we  have  a  very  awful  example  of  it  in  the 
story  of  the  witch  of  Endor,  and  a  very  horrid  one  in 
Lucan.*  But  the  Latin  medieval  writers,  whose  Greek 
was  either  little  or  none,  spelt  the  word  '  nigroman- 
tia,'  as  if  its  first  syllables  had  been  Latin :   at  the 

is  applicable :  '  Fieri  non  dehuit,  factum  valet.'     Were  it  otherwise, 
languages  would  be  robbed  of  much  of  their  wealth." 
*  Phars.,  vi.,  720-830. 


NECROMANCY,   PLEURISY,   ETC.  221 

same  time,  not  wholly  forgetting  the  original  meaning, 
but  in  fact  getting  round  to  it  though  by  a  wrong  pro- 
cess, they  understood  the  dead  by  these  '  nigri,'  or 
blacks,  whom  they  had  brought  into  the  word.*  Down 
to  a  rather  late  period  we  find  the  forms  '  neg-romsm- 
cer'  and  '  neg-y-omancy^  frequent  in  English. 

'  Pleurisy'  used  often  to  be  spelt  (I  do  not  think  it 
is  so  now)  without  an  e  in  the  first  syllable,  evidently 
on  the  tacit  assumption  that  it  was  from  plus  pluris. 
When  Shakespeare  falls  into  an  error,  he  "  makes  the 
offence  gracious;"  yet,  I  think,  he  would  scarcely 
have  written — 

"  For  goodness  growing  to  a  plurisy 
Dies  of  his  own  too  much"  — 

but  that  he^  too,  derived  '  plurisy'  from  pluris.  This, 
even  with  the  "  small  Latin  and  less  Greek,"  which 
Ben  Jonson  allows  him,  he  scarcely  would  have  done, 
had  the  word  presented  itself  in  that  form  which,  by 
right  of  its  descent  from  -rXsupa  (being  a  pain,  stitch, 
or  sickness  in  the  side).,  it  ought  to  have  possessed. 
Those  who  spelt  '  crucible'  '  chrysoble'  (Jeremy  Tay- 
lor does  so),  must  evidently  have  done  this  under  the 
assumption  that  the  Greek  for  gold^  and  not  the  Latin 
for  cross^  lay  at  the  foundation  of  this  word. 

In  all  these  words  which  I  have  adduced  last,  the 
correct  spelling  has  in  the  end  resumed  its  sway.  It 
is  not  so  with  '  frontispiece,'  which  ought  to  be  spelt 
'  frontispzce'  (it  was  so  by  Milton  and  others),  being 
the  low  Latin  '  frontispicium,'  from  '  frons'  and  '  aspi- 
cio,'  the  forefront  of  the  building,  that  part  which 
presents  itself  to  the  view.     It  was  only  the  entirely 

*  Thus,  in  a  Vocabulary,  1475:  "Nigromansia  dicitur  divinatio 
facta  per  nigros." 


222    CHANGED  SPELLING  OF  ENGLISH  WORDS. 

ungrounded  notion  that  the  word  '  piece'  constitutes 
the  last  syllable,  which  has  given  rise  to  our  present 
orthography.* 

*  As  '  orthography'  itself  means  properly  "  right  spelling,"  it  might 
be  a  curious  question  whether  it  is  permissible  to  speak  of  an  incor- 
rect orthography,  that  is,  of  a  wrong  rj'^A^spelling.  The  question 
which  would  be  thus  started  is  one  of  not  unfrequent  recuiTence,  and 
it  is  very  worthy  of  observation  how  often,  so  soon  as  we  take  note 
of  etymologies,  this  contradictio  in  adjecto  is  found  to  occur.  I  will 
here  adduce  a  few  examples  from  the  Greek,  the  Latin,  the  German, 
and  from  our  own  tongue.  Thus,  the  Greeks,  having  no  convenient 
word  to  express  a  rider,  apart  from  a  rider  on  a  horse,  did  not  scruple 
to  speak  of  the  Norseman  {[Tnr£:vi)  upon  an  elephant.  They  often  al- 
lowed themselves  in  a  like  inaccuracy,  where  certainly  there  was  no 
necessity :  as  in  using  dv6^jiai  of  the  statue  of  a  woman  ;  where  it  would 
have,  been  quite  as  easy  to  have  used  elKchv  or  aya^na.  So,  too,  their 
'^  table'  {■Kp(n:c^a=^  TiTpoi-E^a)  involved  probably  the  four  feet  which 
commonly  support  one ;  yet  they  did  not  shrink  from  speaking  of  a 
fAree-footed  table  (rpi'rrot)?  Tpaml^a),  in  other  words,  a  "  <Aree-footed  four- 
footed ;"  much  as  though  we  should  speak  of  a  "  iAree-footed  guadru- 
ped."  Homer  writes  of  a  *  hecatomb'  not  of  a  hundred,  but  of  twelve, 
oxen ;  and  elsewhex'e  of  Hebe  he  says,  in  words  not  reproducible  in 
English,  vcKTan  E':)i'o^6ei.  '  Tctrarchs'  were  often  rulers  of  quite  other 
than  fourth  parts  of  a  land.  "AKparos  had  so  come  to  stand  for  wine, 
without  any  thought  more  of  its  signifying  originally  the  unmingled, 
that  St.  John  speaks  of  u-paroj  KCKEpaa^ihos  (Rev.  xiv.  10),  or  the  un- 
mingled mingled.  Boxes  in  which  precious  ointments  were  contained 
were  so  commonly  of  alabaster,  that  the  name  came  to  be  applied  to 
them  whether  they  were  so  or  not ;  and  Theocritus  celebrates  ''golden 
alabasters."  Cicero,  having  to  mention  a  water-clock,  is  obliged  to 
call  it  a  water  swmlial  (solarium  ex  aqua).  Columella  speaks  of  a 
*' vintage  of  honey"  (viudemia  mellis) ;  and  Horace  invites  his  friend 
to  impede,  not  his  foot,  but  his  head,  with  myrtle  {caput  imped'wa 
myrto).  Thus,  too,  a  German  writer,  who  desired  to  tell  of  the  golden 
shoes  with  which  the  folly  of  Caligula  adorned  his  horse,  could  scarcely 
avoid  spedking  o^  golden  hoof-iVons.  The  same  inner  contradiction  i.s 
involved  in  such  language  as  our  own — a  ''false  rerdict,"  a  "steel 
cuirass"  C  coriacea'  from  corium,  leather^,  "  antics  new"  (Harring- 
ton's Ariosto),  an  "erroneous  etymology,"  a  "corn-chandler,"  that  is, 
a  "corn  canc?/e-maker,"  "rather  late,"  '  rather'  being  the  compar5.tive 
of  'rathe,'  early,  and  thus  "rather  late"  being  indeed  "more  earlv 
late ;"  and  in  others. 


SYREN,  ETC.  223 

You  may,  perhaps,  wonder  that  I  have  dwelt  so 
long  on  those  details  of  spelling ;  that  I  have  bestowed 
on  tliem  so  much  of  my  own  attention ;  that  I  have 
claimed  for  them  so  much  of  yours  :  yet  in  truth  I  can 
not  regard  them  as  unworthy  of  our  very  closest  heed. 
For,  indeed,  of  how  much  beyond  itself  is  accurate 
or  inaccurate  spelling  the  certain  indication  !  Thus, 
when  we  meet  '  s^ren'  for  '  stren,'  as  so  strangely  often 
we  do,  almost  always  in  newspapers,  and  often  where 
we  should  hardly  have  expected  (1  met  it  lately  in 
the  Quarterly  Review,  and  again  in  Giflford's  Massin- 
gerj,  how  very  difficult  it  is  not  to  be  "judges  of  evil 
thoughts,"  and  to  take  this  slovenly  misspelling  as  the 
specimen  and  evidence  of  an  inaccuracy  and  ignorance 
which  reaches  very  far  wider  than  the  single  word 
which  is  before  us  !  But  why  is  it  that  so  much  sig- 
nificance is  ascribed  to  a  wrong  spelling  ?  Because 
ignorance  of  a  word's  spelling  at  once  argues  igno- 
rance of  its  origin  and  derivation.  I  do  not  mean 
that  one  who  spells  rightly  may  not  be  ignorant  of  it 
too,  but  he  who  spells  wrongly  is  certainly  so.  Thus, 
to  recur  to  the  example  I  have  just  adduced,  he  who 
for  '  siren'  writes  '  s^ren,'  certainly  knows  nothing  of 
the  magic  cords  (trs/pai)  of  song,  by  which  those  beau- 
tiful enchantresses  were  supposed  to  draw  those  that 
heard  them  to  their  ruin. 

Correct  or  incorrect  orthography  being,  then,  this 
note  of  accurate  or  inaccurate  knowledge,  we  may 
confidently  conclude,  where  two  spellings  of  a  word 
exist,  and  are  both  employed  by  persons  who  gener- 
ally write  with  precision  and  scholarship,  that  there 
must  be  something  to  account  for  this.  It  will  gen- 
erally be  worth  your  while  to  inquire  into  the  causes 


224         CHANGED   SPELLING   OF   ENGLISH   WORDS. 

which  enable  both  spellings  to  hold  their  ground  and 
to  find  their  supporters,  not  ascribing  either  one  or 
the  other  to  mere  carelessness  or  error.  It  will  in 
these  cases  often  be  found  that  two  spellings  exist, 
because  two  views  of  the  word's  origin  exist,  and 
each  of  those  spellings,  is  the  correct  expression  of 
one  of  these.  The  question,  therefore,  which  way  of 
spelling  should  continue,  and  wholly  supersede  the 
other,  and  which,  while  the  alternative  remains,  we 
should  ourselves  employ,  can  only  be  settled  by  set- 
tling which  of  these  etymologies  deserves  the  prefer- 
ence. So  is  it,  for  example,  with  '  chemist'  and 
*  chemist,'  neither  of  which  has  obtained  in  our  com- 
mon use  the  complete  mastery  over  the  other.  It  is 
not  here,  as  in  some  other  cases,  that  one  is  certainly 
right,  the  other  as  certainly  wrong :  but  they  severally 
represent  two  different  etymologies  of  the  word,  and 
each  is  correct  according  to  its  own.  If  we  are  to 
spell  '  chemist'  and  '  chemistry,'  it  is  because  these 
words  are  considered  to  be  derived  from  the  Greek 
word  xujxocr,  sap ;  and  the  chymic  art  will  then  have 
occupied  itself  first  with  distilling  the  juice  and  sap  of 
plants,  and  will  from  this  have  derived  its  name.  I 
have  little  doubt,  however,  that  the  other  spelling, 
';  chemist,'  not  '  chemist,'  is  the  correct  one.  It  was 
not  with  the  distillation  of  herbs,  but  with  the  amal- 
gamation of  metals,  that  chemistry  occupied  itself  at 
its  rise ;  and  the  word  embodies  a  reference  to  Egypt, 
the  land  of  Ham  or  '  Cham'  (XiifAja),*  in  which  this 
art  was  first  practised  with  success. 

Of  how  much  confusion  the  spelling  which  used  to 
be  so  common,  '  satyr'  for  '  satire,'  is  at  once  the  con 

*  As  Plutarch  tells  us  Egypt  was  called,  De  hid.  ei  Osir.,  c.  33. 


SATYR,   SATIRE,   ETC.  225 

sequence,  the  expression,  and  cause !  Not,  indeed, 
that  this  confusion  first  began  with  us  ;*  for  the  same 
already  found  place  in  the  Latin,  where  '  satyricus' 
was  continually  written  for  '  satiricus,'  out  of  a  false 
assumption  of  the  identity  between  the  Roman  satire 
and  the  Greek  satyriQ  drama.  The  Roman  '  satira' — 
I  speak  of  things  familiar  to  many  of  my  hearers — is 
properly  a  full  dish  (lanx  being  understood)  —  a  dish 
heaped  up  with  various  ingredients,  a  '  farce'  (accord- 
ing to  the  original  signification  of  that  word),  or  hodge- 
podge ;  and  the  word  was  transferred  from  this  to  a 
form  of  poetry  which  at  first  admitted  the  utmost  va- 
riety in  the  materials  of  which  it  was  composed,  and 
the  shapes  into  which  these  materials  were  wrought 
up ;  being  the  only  form  of  poetry  which  the  Romans 
did  not  borrow  from  the  Greeks.  Wholly  different 
from  this — having  no  one  point  of  contact  with  it  in 
its  form,  its  history,  or  its  intention — is  the  '  satyric' 
drama  of  Greece,  so  called  because  Silenus  and  the 
'  satyrs'  supplied  the  chorus  ;  and  in  their  naive  self- 
ishness, and  mere  animal  instincts,  held  up  before  men 
a  mirror  of  what  they  would  be,  if  only  the  divine, 
which  is  also  the  truly  human,  element  of  humanity, 

*  We  have  a  notable  evidence  liow  deeply  rooted  this  error  was, 
how  long  this  confusion  endured,  of  the  way  in  which  it  was  shared 
by  the  learned  as  well  as  the  unlearned,  in  'M:Aio\\' &  Apology  for  Sinec- 
tymnuus,  sect.  7,  which  everywhere  presumes  the  identity  of  the  'satyr' 
and  the  'satirist.'  It  was  Isaac  Casaubon  who  first  effectually  dissi- 
pated it  even  for  the  learned  world.  The  results  of  his  investigations 
v/ere  made  popular  for  tlie  unlearned  reader  by  Dryden,  in  the  very 
instructive  Discourse  on  Satirical  Poetry,  prefixed  to  his  translations 
of  Juvenal ;  but  the  confusion  still  survives,  and  '  satyrs'  and  '■  satires' 
—  the  Greek  ' satyric' drama,  the  Latin  'satirical'  poetry  —  are  stilJ 
Assumed  bv  most  to  have  something  to  do  with  one  another. 

10* 


226         CHANGED   SPELLING  OF  ENGLISH  WORDS. 

were  withdrawn ;  what  man,  all  that  properly  made 
him  man  being  withdrawn,  would  prove. 

And  then  what  light,  as  we  have  already  seen,  does 
the  older  spelling  of  a  word  often  cast  upon  its  ety- 
mology !  How  often  does  it  clear  up  the  mystery, 
which  would  otherwise  have  hung  about  it,  or  which 
had  hung  about  it  till  some  one  had  noticed  and  turned 
to  profit  this  its  earlier  spelling !  Thus,  '  dirge'  is 
always  spelt  '  dirige'  in  early  English.  This  '  dirige' 
may  be  the  first  word  in  a  Latin  psalm  or  prayer  once 
used  at  funerals ;  there  is  a  reasonable  probability 
that  the  explanation  of  the  word  is  here  :  at  any  rate, 
if  it  is  not  here,  it  is  nowhere.  The  derivation  of 
'midwife'  is  uncertain,  and  has  been  the  subject  of 
discussion  ;  but  when  we  find  it  spelt '  medewife'  and 
'  meadwife,'  in  Wiclif 's  Bible,  this  leaves  hardly  a 
doubt  that  it  is  the  wife  or  woman  who  acts  for  a 
mead  or  reward.  In  cases,  too,  where  there  was  no 
mystery  hanging  about  a  word,  how  often  does  the 
early  spelling  make  clear  to  all  that  which  was  before 
only  known  to  those  who  had  made  the  language  their 
study !  For  example,  if  an  early  edition  of  Spenser 
should  come  into  your  hands,  or  a  modern  one  in 
which  the  early  spelling  is  retained,  what  continual 
lessons  in  English  might  you  derive  from  it !  Thus, 
'  nostril'  is  always  spelt  by  him  and  his  contempora- 
ries '  nosethrill ;'  a  little  earlier  it  was  '  nosethirle.' 
Now,  '  to  thrill'  is  the  same  as  to  drill  or  pierce  ;  it  is 
plain,  then,  here  at  once,  that  the  word  signifies  the 
orifice  or  opening  with  which  the  nose  is  thrilled,  or 
drilled,  or  pierced.  We  might  have  read  the  word 
for  ever  in  our  modern  spelling  without  being  taught 
this. 


REPRINTING  OF  OLD  BOOKS.         227 

Again,  the  '  morris'  or  '  morrice  dance,'  which  is 
alluded  to  so  often  by  our  early  poets,  as  it  is  now 
spelt  informs  us  nothing  about  itself;  but  read  '  mo- 
riske  dance,'  as  it  is  generally  spelt  by  Holland  and 
his  contemporaries,  and  you  will  scarcely  fail  to  per- 
ceive that  of  which,  indeed,  there  is  no  manner  of 
doubt ;  namely,  that  it  was  so  called  either  because 
it  was  really,  or  was  supposed  to  be,  a  dance  in  use 
among  the  Moriscoes  of  Spain,  and  thence  introduced 
into  England.* 

Again,  philologers  tell  us,  and  no  doubt  rightly, 
that  our  '  cray-fish,'  or  '  craw-fish,'  is  the  French 
*  ecrevisse.'  This  is  true,  but  certainly  it  is  not  self- 
evident.  Trace,  however,  the  word  through  these 
successive  spellings — '  krevys'  (Lydgate),  '  crevish' 
(Gascoigne),  '  craifish'  (Holland) — and  the  chasm 
between  '  cray-fish'  or  '  craw-fish'  and  '  ecrevisse'  is 
by  aid  of  these  three  intermediate  spellings  bridged 
over  at  once  ;  and  in  the  fact  of  our  Gothic  '  fish'  find- 
ing its  way  into  this  French  word  we  see  only  another 
example  of  a  law,  which  has  been  already  abundantly 
illustrated  in  this'lecture.f 

*  "I  have  seen  him 
Caper  upright,  like  a  wild  M&risco, 
Shaking  the  bloody  darts,  as  he  his  bells." 

Shakespeare,  2  Henri/  VL,  act  iii.,  sc.  i. 

t  In  the  reprinting  of  old  books  it  is  often  very  difficult  to  deter- 
mine how  far  the  old  shape  in  whicli  words  present  themselves  should 
be  retained,  how  far  they  should  be  conformed  to  present  usage.  It 
is  comparatively  easy  to  lay  down  as  a  rule  that  in  books  intended 
for  popular  use,  wherever  the  form  of  the  word  is  not  affected  by  the 
modernizing  of  the  spelling,  as  where  this  modernizing  consists  merely 
in  the  dropping  of  superfluous  letters,  there  it  shall  take  place;  as 
who  would  wish  our  Bibles  to  be  now  printed  letter  for  letter  after 
the  edition  of  1611,  or  Shakespeare  with  the  orthography  of  the  first 


228  CHANGED    SPELLING   OF   ENGLISH   WOltDS. 

Ill  other  ways  also  an  accurate  taking  note  of  the 
spelling  of  words,  and  of  the  successive  changes 
which  it  has  undergone,  will  often  throw  light  upon 

folio  ?  But  wherever  more  than  the  spelling,  the  actual  shape,  out- 
line, and  character  of  the  word  has  been  affected  by  the  changes 
which  it  has  undergone,  that  in  all  such  cases  the  earlier  form  shall 
be  held  fast.  There  can  be  little  question  of  the  justice  of  such  a 
rule  as  this.  At  the  same  time,  when  it  is  attempted  to  carry  it  out, 
it  is  not  always  easy  to  draw  the  line,  and  to  determine  what  affects 
the  form  and  being  of  a  word,  and  what  does  not.  About  some  Avords 
there  can  be  no  doubt ;  and  therefore  when  a  modern  editor  of  Fuller's 
Cliurch  History  complacently  announces  that  he  has  allowed  himself 
in  such  changes  as  '  dirige'  into  *  dirge,*  *  barreter'  into  '  barrister,* 
'synonymas'  into  'synonymous,'   'extempory'  into  'extemporary,* 

*  scited'  into  '  situated,'  '  vancurrier'  into  *  avant-courier,'  he  at  the 
same  time  informs  us  that  for  all  purposes  of  the  study  of  the  English 
language  (and  few  writers  are  for  this  more  important  than  Fuller), 
he  has  made  his  edition  utterly  worthless.  Or,  again,  when  modern 
editors  of  Shakespeare  print,  and  that  without  giving  any  intimation 
of  the  fact  — 

"Like  quills  upon  the  fretful  porcupine"  — 

he  having  written,  and  in  his  first  folio  and  quarto  the  words  stand 
ing  — 

"Like  quills  upon  the  fretful  porpentine"  — 

this  being  the  earlier,  and  in  Shakespeare's  time  the  more  common, 
form  of  the  word  —  they  must  be  considered  as  taking  a  very  unwar- 
rantable liberty  with  his  text;   and  no  less,  when  they  substitute 

*  Kenilworth'  for  *  Killingworth,'  which  he  wrote,  and  which  was  his, 
Marlowe's,  and  generally  the  earlier  form  of  the  name. 

Nor  can  I  help  observing  that  our  later  reprints  of  the  authorized 
version  of  Scripture  have  allowed  themselves  in  alterations,  from 
which  it  would  have  been  far  better  to  have  abstained  —  although  I 
am  unable  to  affirm,  not  having  followed  up  the  matter,  how  early 
these  began.  It  may  be  quite  true  that  *moe,'  where  we  should 
write  '  more,'  is  antiquated  now ;  but  to  a  certain  extent  it  was  so 
when  the  last  revision  of  our  translation  was  made.  If,  therefore,  the 
authors  of  that  revision,  on  which  the  church  has  set  the  seal  of  per- 
manence, chose  to  introduce  it,  or  finding  it  in  the  former  versions  to 
retain  it,  surely  it  ought  not  to  have  been  subsequently  removed,  as  it 
has  been  at  John  iv.  41 ;  Gal.  iv.  27,  and  perhaps  elsewhere.  We  do 
not  substitute  'struck'  for  'strake'  (Acts  xxvii.  17),  because  'strake' 


ENGLISH   AUTHORIZED   VERSION.  229 

them.  Tims,  we  may  know,  others  having  assured 
us  of  the  fact,  that '  ant'  and  '  emmet'  were  originally 
only  two  difierent  spellings  of  one  and  the  same  word  ; 

lias  become  archaic  ;  as  little  therefore  ought  we  to  have  changed  the 
perfect  'lift'  into  'lifted'  (Acts  ix.  41);  being,  indeed,  inconsistent 
here,  as  '  life'  has  elsewhere  been  suffered  to  remain  ;  thus,  Luke  xvi. 
23:  "He  lift  up  his  eyes."  If  they  spelt  'kinred,'  as  everywhere 
they  did,  being  the  universal  spelling  to  a  considerably  later  period, 
this  should  not  have  been  changed  into  'kindred;'  nor  yet  'Jerusa- 
lem,* everywhere  substituted  for  the  statelier  '  Hierusalem ;'  nor 
'Apollos'  for  'Apollo'  (1  Cor.  iii.  22;  iv.  6);  nor  'flux'  for  'flix' 
(Acts  xxviii.  8),  which  last  was  the  constant  form  of  the  word  in  our 
early  literature.  So,  too,  '  broided  Yiaxr'  might  have  been  suffered  to 
remain  at  1  Tim.  ii.  9;  and  '  broidered'  not  now  printed  in  its  stead 
—  the  good  old  English  word  'to  broid,'  which  still  survives  in  the 
form  '  to  braid,*  being  the  standing  word  to  express  the  plaiting  of 
hair ;  in  which  sense  '  to  broider,*  however  it  may  be  related  to  it,  is 
never  used.  Or,  again,  why  now  '  &h\])wreck,'  if  they  wrote  'ship- 
wrack'  (2  Cor.  xi.  25;  1  Tim.  i.  19)  ?  It  is  true  that  we  betake  our- 
selves to  our  bibles  for  far  higher  lessons  than  lessons  in  the  English 
language ;  but  why  should  we  not  learn  by  the  way,  as  the  word 
faithfully  retained  would  have  taught  us,  the  original  identity  between 
these  two  now  distinct  words,  '  wreck'  and  *  wrack'  1  Least  of  all 
should  our  modern  editors  have  given  in  to  the  corruption  of  *  shame- 
fastwQ&s,'  (1  Tim.  ii.  9),  and  printed  ' shame/aced'ness,'  as  now  they 
do,  changing  the  word  which  meant  once  a  being  established  firmly 
and  fast  in  honorable  shame,  into  the  mere  wearing  of  the  blush  of 
shame  upon  the  yace;  cf.  Ecclus.  xxvi.  15,  25  ;  xxxii.  10;  xli.  16,24; 
in  all  which  passages  the  later  editions  have  departed  from  that  which 
ought  to  have  been  exemplary  to  them.  '  Shamefast'  is  one  of  a 
group  and  family  of  words,  in  all  which  '  fast'  constitutes  the  second 
syllabic:  thus,  ' stciidfast,'  ' \yon\fast ;'  and  those  good  old  words, 
'rootyasi' and  'rootfastness,' which  we  have  now  let  go.  At  Luke 
vii.  41,  the  question  may  be  more  difficult  to  determine.  The  two 
prteterites  of  'to  owe,' the  elder  'ought,'  and  the  modern  'owed/ 
have  so  far  separated  off  in  meaning,  that  money  is  not  'ought'  any 
more,  but  only  'owed.'  With  all  this,  it  may  still  be  a  question 
whether  the  words  of  the  earlier  editions  of  our  Bible  should  have 
been  changed  :  "  There  was  a  certain  creditor  which  had  two  debtors  •■ 
the  one  ought  five  hundred  pence,  and  the  other  fifty."  They  could 
have  created  no  difficulty  for  any. 


230    CHANGED  SPELLING  OF  ENGLISH  WORDS. 

but  we  may  be  perplexed  to  understand  how  two 
forms  of  a  word,  now  so  different,  could  ever  have 
diverged  from  a  siugle  root.     When,  however,  we 

Having  thus  started  the  subject  of  alterations  in  our  authorized 
version  which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  ought  not  to  have  been  made,  let  me 
mention  one,  which,  I  think,  ought.  I  can  not  doubt  that  the  words 
at  Matt,  xxiii.  24,  "which  strain  at  a  gnat,  and  swallow  a  camel," 
contain  a  misprint,  which,  having  been  passed  over  in  the  first  edition 
of  1611,  has  held  its  ground  ever  since;  nor  yet  that  our  translators 
intended,  "  which  strain  out  a  gnat,  and  swallow  a  camel ;"  this  being 
at  once  intelligible  and  a  correct  rendering  of  the  original ;  while  our 
version,  as  at  present  it  stands,  is  neither ;  or  only  intelligible  on  the 
supposition  —  no  doubt  the  supposition  of  most  English  readers  — 
that  "strain  at"  means,  swallowing  with  difficulty;  men  hardly  and 
with  effort  swallowing  the  little  insect,  but  gulping  down  meanwhile 
unconcerned  the  huge  animal.  It  need  scarcely  be  said  that  this  is- 
very  far  from  the  meaning  of  the  original  words,  which  are  o\  JiiiAi^oi/rcs 
Tov  KwvMTca,  by  Meyer  rendered  well,  "  percolando  removentes  mus- 
cam;"  and  by  the  Vulgate  also  not  ill,  "excolantes  culicem  ;"  for 
which  use  of  iiv'Xii^eiv,  as  to  cleanse  by  passing  through  a  strainer,  see 
Plutarch,  Syinp.,  vi.,  7,  1.  It  was  the  custom  of  the  more  accurate 
and  stricter  Jews  to  strain  their  wine,  vinegar,  and  other  potables, 
through  linen  or  gauze,  lest  unawares  they  should  drink  down  some 
little  unclean  insect  therein,  and  thus  transgress  Lev.  xi.  20,  23,  41, 
42 — just  as  the  Buddhists  do  now  in  Ceylon  and  Hindostan  —  and 
to  this  custom  of  theirs  the  Lord  refers.  [Since  this  was  first  pub- 
lished, a  correspondent,  known  to  me  only  by  name,  has  kindly  sent 
me  the  following  notice  :  "  In  a  ride  from  Tangier  to  Tetuan,  I  ob- 
served that  a  Moorish  soldier  who  accompanied  me,  when  he  drank 
always  unfolded  the  end  of  his  turban  and  placed  it  over  the  mouth 
of  his  hota,  drinking  through  the  muslin,  to  strain  out  the  gnats,  whose 
larvae  swarm  in  the  water  of  that  country."]  The  further  fact  that 
our  present  version  rests  to  so  great  an  extent  on  the  three  preceding, 
Tyndale's,  Cranmer's,  and  the  Geneva,  and  that  all  these  have  "  strain 
out,"  is  additional  evidence  in  confirmation  of  that  about  which  for 
myself  I  feel  no  doubt,  namely,  that  we  have  here  an  uncorrected 
error  of  the  press.  In  another  passage,  where  there  was  manifestly 
such  —  I  mean  at  1  Cor.  xii.  28,  "helps  in  governments"  —  the  mis- 
print, after  having  retained  its  place  in  several  successive  editions, 
was  afterward,  I  know  not  by  whose  authority,  removed,  and  the  pres- 
ent correcter  reading,  "  helps,  governments"  { hrLXiiipUi,  yvQepvficeti), 
substituted  in  its  room. 


RENEGADE,   RUNAGATE,   ETC.  231 

find  the  different  spellings,  '  emmet,'  '  emet,'  '  amet,' 
'  amt,'  *  ant,'  the  gulf  which  appeared  to  separate 
'  emmet'  from  '  ant'  is  bridged  over  at  once,  and  we 
not  merely  know  on  the  assurance  of  others  that  these 
two  are  in  fact  identical,  their  differences  being  only 
superficial,  but  we  perceive  clearly  in  what  manner 
they  are  so. 

Even  before  any  close  examination  of  the  matter, 
it  is  hard  not  to  suspect  that  '  runagate'  is  in  fact 
another  form  of  '  renegade,'  slightly  transformed,  as 
so  many  words,  to  put  an  English  signification  into  its 
first  syllable  ;  and  then  the  meaning  gradually  modi- 
fied in  obedience  to  the  new  derivation  which  was  as- 
sumed to  be  its  original  and  true  one.  Our  suspicion 
of  this  is  very  greatly  strengthened  (for  we  see  how 
very  closely  the  words  approach  one  another)  by  the 
fact  that  '  renegade'  is  constantly  spelt '  renegade'  in 
our  old  authors ;  while  at  the  same  time  the  denial  of 
faith,  which  is  now  a  necessary  element  in  '  renegade,' 
and  one  differencing  it  inwardly  from  '  runagate,'  is 
altogether  wanting  in  early  use — the  denial  of  counr 
try  and  of  the  duties  thereto  owing  being  all  that  is 
implied  in  it.  Thus,  it  is  constantly  employed  in 
Holland's  Livy  as  a  rendering  of '  perfuga  ;'*  while  in 
the  one  passage  where  '  runagate'  occurs  in  the  Prayer- 
Book  version  of  the  Psalms  (Ps.  Ixviii.  6),  a  refer- 
ence to  the  original  will  show  that  the  translators 
could  only  have  employed  it  there  on  the  ground  that 
it  also  expressed  rebel,  revolter,  and  not  runaway 
merely. 

*  "  The  Carthaginians  shall  restore  and  deliver  back  all  the  rene- 
gctles  [pcrfugas]  and  fugitives  that  have  fled  to  their  side  from  us.''  — 
p.  751. 


232         CHANGED   SPELLING   OP  ENGLISH  WOBDS. 

I  might  easily  occupy  your  attention  much  longer, 
so  little  barren  or  unfruitful  does  this  subject  of  spel- 
ling appear  likely  to  prove  ;  but  all  thinos  must  have 
an  end :  and  as  I  concluded  my  first  lecture  with  a 
remarkable  testimony  borne  by  an  illustrious  German 
scholar  to  the  merits  of  our  English  tongue,  I  will 
conclude  my  last  with  the  words  of  another — not,  in- 
deed, a  German,  but  still  of  the  great  Germanic  stock 
— words  resuming  in  themselves  much  of  which  we 
have  been  speaking  upon  this  and  upon  former  occa- 
sions :  "  As  our  bodies,"  he  says,  "  have  hidden  re- 
sources and  expedients,  to  remove  the  obstacles  which 
the  very  art  of  the  physician  puts  in  its  way,  so  lan- 
guage, ruled  by  an  indomitable  inward  principle,  tri- 
umphs in  some  degree  over  the  folly  of  grammarians. 
Look  at  the  English,  polluted  by  Danish  and  Norman 
conquests,  distorted  in  its  genuine  and  noble  features 
by  old  and  recent  endeavors  to  mould  it  after  the 
French  fashion,  invaded  by  a  hostile  entrance  of  Greek 
and  Latin  words,  threatening  by  increasing  hosts  to 
overwhelm  the  indigenous  terms  !  In  these  long  con- 
tests against  the  combined  power  of  so  many  forcible 
enemies,  the  language,  it  is  true,  has  lost  some  of  its 
power  of  inversion  in  the  structure  of  sentences,  the 
means  of  denoting  the  difference  of  gender,  and  the 
nice  distinctions  by  inflection  and  termination  ;  almost 
every  word  is  attacked  by  the  spasm  of  the  accent 
and  the  drawing  of  consonants  to  wrong  positions  : 
yet  the  old  English  principle  is  not  overpowered. 
Trampled  down  by  the  ignoble  feet  of  strangers,  its 
springs  still  retain  force  enough  to  restore  itself.  It 
lives  and  plays  through  all  the  veins  of  the  language  ; 
it  impregnates  the  innumerable  strangers  entering  its 


VITAL  PRINCIPLE  IN  ENGLISH.  233 

dominions  with  its  temper,  and  stains  them  with  its 
color — not  unlike  the  Greek,  which,  in  taking  up 
oriental  words,  stripped  them  of  their  foreign  costume, 
and  bid  them  to  appear  as  native  Greeks."* 

*  Halbertsma,  quoted  by  Bosworth,  Origin  of  the  English  and  Gw- 
manic  Languages,  p.  39. 


INDEX   OF   WORDS. 


PAOB 

Abenteuer 218 

Abnormal 70 

Academy 68 

Accommodate 98 

Acre 175 

Adamant 209 

Admiralty 98 

Advocate 78 

^on 70 

-Esthetic 70 

Afeard 116 

Affluent 96 

Afraid 116 

Afterthink 110 

Alcimus 215 

Alcove 21 

Analogic 58 

Ant 229 

Antipodes 67 

Apotheosis 67 

Armbrust 218 

Arride 58 

Ascertain 169 

Ask 116 

Astarte 215 

Attercop 113 

Aurantium 219 

Aurichalcum 215 

Avunculize 85 

Axe 116 

Baffle 164 

Baker,  bakester 143 

Banter 97 

Barrier 68 

Bawn 113 

Beam 46 


Bitesheep 132 

Black  Art.. 220 

Blackguard 171 

Blasphemous 117 

Bombast 181 

Book 26 

Boor 1 83 

Bozra 215 

Bran-new 210 

Brat 187 

Brazen 150 

Breaden 150 

Broid 229 

Brum 84 

Buffalo 22 

Butter 215 

Buxom 125 

Carriage 165 

Casuistry 192 

Chagrin 88 

Chance-medley 220 

Chanticleer 84 

Chemist,  chemistry 224 

Chicken 144 

Chouse 85 

Chymist,  chymistry 224 

Clawback 131 

Coraissatio 215 

Commerage 185 

Confluent 96 

Congregational 75 

Contrary 117 

Convertisseur 58 

Corpse ]  74 

Country  dance 219 

Court  card 217 


INDEX   OP  WORDS. 


235 


Coxcomb 208 

Cozen 210 

Crawfish 227 

Cre.insur 48 

Criterion 67 

Crone,  crony 87 

Crucible 221 

Crusade 63 

Cuirass 222 

Currant 217 

Cynarctomachy 85 

Dahlia 82 

Dame 175 

Dandylion 220 

Dapper 46 

Dearworth 109 

Dedal 81 

Dehort 127 

Demagogue 57 

Denomiriationalism 75 

Depot 67 

Diamond 209 

Dip 46 

Dirge 226 

Dissimilation 94 

Donat 82 

Dosones 84 

Doughty 134 

Drachm 176 

Dragoman 19 

Dub 134 

Duke 174 

Dumps 135 

Dutch 160 

Eame 109 

Earsport 109 

Educational 75 

Effervescence 57 

Einseitig 72 

Eliakim '.  .215 

Ellinge 49 

Emmet 229 

Emotional 75 

Encyclopaedia •. 67 

Enfimtillnge 57 

Equivocation 1 78 

Erutar 136 

Escobardcr 83 

Europe 204 

Eyebite 1 1 1 


VAOa 

Fairy 174 

Fatherland 72 

Fiitter-mouse 109 

Folklore 72 

Foolhappy 1 27 

Foolhardy 126 

Foolhasty 126 

Foollarge 126 

Foretalk 110 

Fougue 65 

Fraischeur 65 

Frances 88 

Francis 88 

Frimm 109 

Frivolity 57 

Frontispiece 221 

Furlong 175 

Gainly 126 

Gallon 176 

Galvanism 82 

Garble 181 

Geir .109 

Gentian 82 

Girdle 26 

Girfalcon 109 

Girl 175 

Glassen 1 50 

Glitterand 116 

Gordian 81 

Gossip 184 

Great 206 

Grimsire 110 

Grogram 208 

Grocer 208 

Grub 46 

Hallow 78 

Handbook 72 

Hangdog 133 

Hector 83 

Heft 109 

Hermetic 81 

Hery 108 

Hide 46 

Hierosolyma 214 

Hipocras 81 

Hippodame 63 

His 145 

Hotspur 109 

Huck '. 142 


236 


INDEX   OF   WORDS. 


PAOB 

Huckster,  hucksteress 142 

Hurricane 20 

Iceberg 71 

Icefield 71 

Idea... 179 

Imp 186 

Influence 163 

International 75 

Island 212 

Isle. 212 

Isolated 98 

Isothermal 94 

Its 119 

Jaw 209 

Jeopardy 78 

Kenilworth 228 

Kindly 167 

Kindred 189 

Knave 189 

Knitster 141 

Kirtle 26 

Lambiner 83 

Lazar 82 

Leer 109 

Leghorn 218 

Libel 174 

Lifeguard 71 

London 207 

Lunch,  luncheon .121 

Malingerer 110 

Mandragora 220 

Mansarde 83 

Many 147 

Matachin 22 

Matamoros 133 

Mausoleum 81 

Meat 174 

Meddle,  meddlesome 187 

Middler Ill 

Midwife 226 

Milken 150 

Mischievous 117 

Miscreant 161 

Mithridate 81 

Mixen 113 

Moe 228 

Moms-dance 227 


Mystery,  myst^re 215 

Myth 7C 

Nap.' 134 

National 75 

Necromancy 220 

Negus  82 

Nemorivagus 73 

Neophyte 98 

Nephew 165 

Nesh. 109 

Niggot 80 

Nimm  109 

Noonscape 122 

Noonshun 121 

Normal 70 

Nostril 226 

Nugget. 80 

Nuntion.. 121 

Oblige 67 

Obsequies 218 

Oculissimus 84 

Orange 218 

Orichalcum 215 

Ornamentation 70 

Orrery 82 

Orthography 222 

Ought 229 

Owed 229 

Pagan 184 

Painful,  painfulness 169 

Pandar,  pandarisra 83 

Panorama 98 

Pasquinade 82 

Patch 82 

Pate 134 

Pease 144 

Pester 80 

Philauty 96 

Photography 70 

Physician 94 

Pigmy 209 

Pinchpenny 132 

Pleurisy 221 

Plunder 70,  98 

Poet 93 

Polite 181 

Porcupine 228 

Porpoise 63 

Postremissimus 85 


INDEX   OF  WORDS. 


237 


Potecary 64 

Praevmicator 178 

Praj^nnatical 187 

Preliber 58 

Preposterous 177 

Prestigx' 66 

Pretty 46 

Prevaricate 178 

Privado 22 

Prose,  proser 188 

Punctilio 22 

Pyramid 214 

Quellio 22 

Querpo 22 

Quinsey 63 

Quirry 64 

Pakehell 133 

llame 218 

Kash 46 

Ratlie,  rathest 127 

Redingote 63 

Refuse 218 

Re<;oldar 136 

Religion 166 

Renegade 231 

Renown 95 

Resent 211 

Reynard 83 

Rodomontade 83 

Riches 1 44 

liighteousness 126 

Rome 206 

Rootfast 110 

Rosen ..149 

Ruly 126 

Runagate 231 


Sag.. 108 

Sardanapalisme 82 

Sash 63 

Satellites 62 

Satire,  satirical 225 

Satyr,  satyric 224 

Scent 211 

Schimmer 1 09 

Scrip 210 

Seamster,  seamstress 142 

Selfish,  selfishness 97 

Sentiment 98 


PAQI 

Sepoy .218 

Serene 125 

Shamefastness 229 

Shrewd,  shrewdness 190 

Silhouette 83 

Silvern 150 

Silvicultrix 73 

Siren 223 

Skinker 108 

Skip 134 

Siick 122 

Smellfeast 131 

Smug 134 

Solidarity 68 

Songster,  songstress 142 

Sorcerer 93 

Spencer 82 

Sperr 108 

Spheterize 69 

Spinner,  spinster 141 

Starconner Ill 

Starve 1 74 

Starvation 76 

Stereotype 70 

Stool 46 

Sudden  200 

Suicide 97 

Suicism,  suist 97 

Siindflut 216 

Sunstead 110 

Swindler 71 

Sycophant 189 

Tabinet 82 

Tapster 142 

Tarre 108 

Tartar 215 

Tartary 216 

Tea 206 

Thatch 46 

Theriac 170 

Thou 155 

Thrasonical 83 

Tind 109 

Tinnen 150 

Tinsel 162 

Tinsel-slippered 162 

Tontine 82 

Tosspot 131 

Treacle 1 70 

Turban 20 


238 


INDEX   OP   WORDS. 


PAQI 

Vjincarrier 63 

Vicinage 63 

Villain 183,  189 

Visnomy 63 

Volcano 81 

Voyage 174 

Wanhope 108 

Wateifright Ill 

Watershed 95 

Wedlock 125 

Weed 174 

Welk 108 


FIGI 

Welkin 144 

Whine 46 

Whole 212 

Wiseacre 218 

Witticism 97 

Witch 93 

Witwanton 1 10 

Woburn 200 

Woodbine 208 

Worship 168 

Worterbuch 102 

Yard 175 


THE    END. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

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DEC    6  1966 -8^  t 


RECEIVED 


DEC    O'GC-IFI 


LOAN  DEPT, 


JUN  2  3  1975  X 


JUN2  3  19T5X 


Rs\urr.«d  by 


wrs 


JUN  4 


Santcs  Cru?  JfJncy 


LD  21A-60m-3,'65 
(F2336sl0)476B 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


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